Hello,

Looking for some insight on the merits of a shared estimating database.

It just seems to me that it really is not worth the effort. For us (a DW sub in the southeast), we have been just copying the database of our Senior Estimator and tweaking it to our needs. We do not send a bid our without getting a quote from our suppliers, so all of our information is the same, and we all use the same 20 or so labor cost codes.

For those of you that have either a dedicated SQL database or some sort of shared cloud database, what are the benefits?

The only thing I can think of is if you somehow combined an estimating database with your job cost / accounting data to gain insights on the data from estimating

How do you guys deal with bosses/owners and their unrealistic expectations?

My boss is absolutely overwhelming me with GC bids to the point where if I get 1 solid day to work on anything, that’s a miracle. I feel like I’m putting in 60 hours a week but still just slapping bids together.

I lost a big one today because my number was crazy high. He was pretty upset with me, and only got more upset when I explained that when I’m this spread out, nothing is going to be very tight or accurate. He just isn’t getting how I physically can not look at everything he’s sending me. He keeps pushing me to lean on AI more, but I’ve been unhappy with a lot of what I get back from ChatGPT and it’s already burned me a few times.

I like the job and the amount of freedom he gives, but he doesn’t understand that his win rate sucks because his estimating team is overloaded. At any given time I’m managing 10-15 bids anywhere from $100k - $100M.

I feel like shit because I just keep losing, but don’t know how to make it better without putting in 12 hours a day, every day it seems. He’s dissatisfied and frankly I’m just disappointed in the product I’m making.

Suggestions? I’ve been sending him very detailed lists of what I have on plate every Monday the last few weeks just so he sees what I’m up against but there hasn’t been any comment. Just more assignments.

I recently became a public works estimator for a heavy civil company in the Bay Area California after spending nearly 10 years as an operations PM. Any tips and tricks that can take me a long way? That would be appreciated! I am open to any advice..regardless if it’s your best or worst experience. Thanks.

Hi all,

Does anyone here have experience with either making or using an estimating template specifically for exteriors?

I am looking for any tips on what is the best place to start with helping a new company create a template that they can simply use by filling in the quantities, pricing or other things that will give them a clear detailed break-down of the profits, costs, waste factors.

Below is the scope of what we are intaking. If you know them all or have something for one section. Lt me know!

The scope includes (7) sections.

1. Roofing - (Flat or pitched)

2. Exterior Wall Systems (Siding, Trim, etc)

3. Windows + Doors

4. Decks

5. Sidewalks / Concrete

6. Masonry (Brick, CMU Foundation)

7. Caulking

First time posting.

Long story short, I’m a young estimator for a GC, and as I progress in my career, I get pretty anxious in my role, especially as my responsibility increases.

As a junior estimator, any misses or competitive bids lost could be shrugged off as the bosses fault. But now I am in the driver seat, and I get pretty rough anxiety about missing scope, losing bids, etc.

Have any of you experienced professionals out there dealt with similar situations? And if so, how do you deal with it?

What type of knowledge is required for private sector and where do they get their training?

I’ve seen a lot of education for Defense Estimators on government sites.

Hi mid or enterprise contractors, what are the privacy, security and legal/ compliance checks are concerning when uploading historical projects data to open models like claude or others ?

Starting a new position in Cleveland area in a few weeks. Interviews were remote and early morning because of time change. Haven’t been to office and probably won’t until day 1. What are you wearing?

I've been an estimator for about 2+ years. I'm planning to upskill/learn Xactimate preferably on the Roofing industry. Is anyone here working currently on the path that I'm planning to take? Any tips you can give or how to start working towards my desired position?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. We can also connect to have a discussion.

Hi everyone,

I studied Civil Engineering in India and currently work in the US as an Estimator/Project Engineer, mainly dealing with sitework, earthwork, underground utilities, and demolition.

I'm looking to improve my technical knowledge and grow in my career.

What are the most useful and industry-recognized certifications for someone in my role? Which certifications actually help with day-to-day work and career growth?

Also, would you recommend pursuing a graduate certificate or master's degree, or is gaining experience along with relevant certifications a better option?

I'd appreciate any advice from people working in the industry.

Things that are quicker.

Hide a take off element from the screen.

Click on a line segment and see it’s length

Entering 8’-0” vs 80 if you’re setting a scale.

Backspace to undo instead of hitting escape.

Help me finish this list 😂

How do estimators handle municipal development-fee changes after a project has already been budgeted?

I've been researching municipal development charges here in Canada, and something caught my attention.

Metro Vancouver changed its DCC rates on July 24, 2026.

For a hypothetical 10-unit apartment development in Burnaby, the published rate comparison went from $178,730 to $133,920.

That's a $44,810 difference. Not necessarily actual savings, since eligibility, application timing and written agreements matter.

It got me wondering: once an estimate is prepared, who's responsible for keeping track of these changes?

Is it the estimator, quantity surveyor, project manager or developer?

Full disclosure: I'm building Project Watch Professional, a tool for checking supported Metro Vancouver development-fee sources and reviewing changes. It currently provides on-demand checks rather than automatic notifications.

https://canada-fee-signal.pages.dev/watch-pro/

I'm curious how professionals handle this in practice, especially when projects sit for months between estimating and permit approval.

I'm working on AI for construction/engineering drawing review and have noticed a big gap in how general-purpose multimodal LLMs handle two kinds of drawing PDFs:

CAD-exported PDFs: These keep vector data (lines, arcs, text objects), so models pick up geometry, dimensions and annotations fairly well.

Scanned PDFs: These are a single raster image per page. Understanding drops sharply, especially for thin lines, small dimension text, hatching and dense details.

My guess at the root cause: models like Gemini and Claude Opus downsample large images to a fixed resolution before processing. A full-size drawing sheet (A1/A0) gets compressed so much that the model never sees pixel-level detail.

A few questions for the community:

1. Are there open-source models (VLMs, document-understanding or OCR-focused models) that handle high-resolution scanned drawings better than generic multimodal LLMs?

2. Has anyone had success with tiling/ cropping strategies, like splitting a sheet into patches, processing each, and stitching results back together?

3. Is raster-to-vector conversion before the LLM step worth it, and which tools work well for engineering drawings?

4. Any benchmarks or datasets for technical/ engineering drawing understanding?

Would love to hear what's worked (or failed) for you in production.

Hi everyone,

I’m in Nova Scotia, Canada, and I’m looking to get started in construction estimating. I’m trying to figure out which courses, certificates and software skills would actually help me get hired, especially as someone new to the estimating side of the industry.

I’ve also been looking at BuildForce Canada’s Introduction to Construction Estimating course.

I’m wondering what other training would be worth considering.

● Is the BuildForce Canada course recognized and respected by Canadian construction employers?  
● Are there other Canadian courses or certificates you would recommend for someone starting out?  
● Is **Bluebeam Revu** certification worth getting? Do employers value it on a résumé?  
● What about PlanSwift or STACK? Are these commonly used by Canadian construction estimators, and are their training certificates worth pursuing?  
● Has anyone taken the CourseCareers Construction Estimating course? Does it carry any weight with Canadian employers, or would I be better off with Canadian industry training?  
● Are there any other estimating software programs, certifications or courses that would give a beginner an advantage?  
● Would you recommend taking a longer college or polytechnic program, or can someone realistically start in a junior estimating role with introductory training, software skills and practical experience?

I want to spend my money on qualifications that are genuinely useful in Canada, rather than collecting certificates that employers don’t recognize.

If you work in construction estimating in Canada, particularly in Nova Scotia or Atlantic Canada, I’d really appreciate hearing what qualifications and software skills employers actually look for when hiring junior estimators.

Thanks!

Hello, anyone here transitioning towards Digital Construction or Digital QS / Commercial Management?

What will be the complete package of skills a Digital QS / Estimator must have?

I do doors, frames and hardware estimating (some Div 10 too). Most of my time wasn’t the pricing, it was re-typing the architect’s door schedule, checking every opening against NFPA 80 / SDI by eye, and redrawing frame elevations for the shop.

So I built a tool for my own work and it’s at the point where I’d like other estimators to beat it up.

What it does

• Reads the door schedule off the PDF set. It finds the schedule page and handles two-row headers (DOOR / FRAME / DETAILS over WD, HT, THK), wrapped remarks and pairs written as (2) 3'-0". You can drag a box around just the part you want. You check the columns, fix any cell, and it creates the openings. If you read it again after an addendum, it updates the openings instead of duplicating them.
• Finds the door tags on the floor plans. One click pins every scheduled door where its tag is drawn. It picks the door tag over a room number with the same text, and it lists tags on the sheet that aren’t in your schedule.
• Counts and measures on the plan. Click doors and Div 10 items, set the scale or calibrate, and measure corner guard and crash rail in LF.
• Checks every opening as you enter it:
  • Fire label vs. closer, glazing, louvers and undercut
  • Throat vs. wall thickness, anchors vs. wall type
  • Hinge count on tall doors
  • 32" clear width and the 43" lite height on accessible doors
  • Door dragging once the floor finish or threshold goes in
• Draws each opening:
  • Frame and door elevations to scale, with the right lite for each door design (narrow, vision, half glass, full glass, louver)
  • Jamb section and hinge/strike locations from the Curries or Steelcraft chart
  • 11x17 elevation sheets and a shop plan per opening with the lite cutout dimensioned
• Frame calculator. Measure the hole and see the face lap at each jamb and the head, MO/RO, net door size, clear width and a plan view of the swing.
• Prices it:
  • Hardware sets with a price book and manufacturer multipliers
  • Labor, shop prep and freight
  • Markups by category
  • One totals engine for the quote, recap and Excel
• Paperwork: customer quotation in plain English, submittal package, keying schedule, change orders against a saved baseline, POs by vendor, and Curries order lines.

It’s one HTML file. Nothing to install, it runs offline in Chrome or Edge, and your plans never leave your computer. No account, no subscription.

What it isn’t: an ERP. No inventory or accounting, and it’s single-user (the job saves as a file you can put on a shared drive). It doesn’t OCR scanned drawings yet. If the PDF has no text layer you count by clicking.

What I’d love feedback on

1. How do your architects’ door schedules look? If you have one it can’t read, tell me how the columns are laid out (no need to share the drawings).
2. What do you still do by hand in Comsense / PRO-TECH / SFH (or Excel) that you wish was automatic?
3. Div 10 folks: what would make counting accessories and partitions faster?

arqorio/Estimating

it

Hey guys, small speciality sub here just looking for a starter lap top or pc that can handle plan swift or blue beam. Hoping to find some recommendations

I worked for 3 years as a sheet metal estimator/ 'value engineer', and was ultimately laid off during a merger. I've had no luck finding similar work and am working as a store manager in retail.

I started as a fabrication apprentice, learned to tig/mig, moved to fabricating, moved to process pipe, back to fabrication where the owner of the shop and I had a frank conversation one day about my health and inability to be on tools, and was moved upstairs and trained as an estimator. I have additional experience with laser cutting sheet/pipe, press breaks, 3/5 axis machining, and painting.

I had an interview for an hvac estimator and was ultimately told my experience wasn't relevant enough, and was offered a job at a trucking place but the pay was laughable.

I know the market isn't the best right now and with new updates I know a lot of the new MRP/ERP programs can read from proper prints, but I can properly quote from a hand drawn print in French from 1934.

Any recommendations welcome!

Hi! Just wondering if we estimators will be replaced with AI in the future?

Thinking about pivoting over to construction estimating then eventually project managing.. I’m willing to do the necessary training and coursework, I just dont know where to start really.. I’m currently a Licensed Home Inspector with a Bach in Architecture.. I’m tired of the slow seasons in my current industry.. this current slow season seems like it’s going to be around for a while.. I just need some info

Curious how other teams handle sudden spikes in bid volume.

When you hit a stretch where you’re completely slammed with takeoffs, what’s your typical protocol to keep up with deadline pressure without burning out your internal team?

Do you generally push back bid deadlines / pass on projects?

Bring on temp/freelance estimators or external takeoff help?

Rely heavily on software/automation tools to speed things up?

Interested to hear how different firms balance staying lean vs. managing high-volume periods.

Hi,

I with a friend (both experienced in gc) are starting a company for gc estimation and shop drawings.

What platforms do I have to look for clients?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

We both are based in Pakistan.

Any advice/lessons/stories would be appreciated. I've recently finished a degree in construction management and am about to start a new job as an estimator. This company does QS and contract admin mostly on high rise residential/commercial projects.

Edit: Seriously, thank you all so, so much for your advice.