One of the tough jobs in construction field is estimating. However, it may become a piece of cake if you avoid making these below-mentioned top 5 mistakes. Projects are won or lost based on the fact on how accurate your cost estimates are! Be wary of these mistakes that are often made while preparing construction cost estimates.
Not attending a pre-bid meeting and performing a Site Visit
The first blunder performed by cost estimators is that they do not perform a site visit and end up doing a guess work while budgeting and estimating. It is important to participate in the pre-bid meeting as well as visit the construction site if you are eager to win the bidding opportunity. Furthermore, unknown site conditions always bring unexpected issues and this affects your estimating report as well. Contractors should not overlook this practice at all! On-site visit tells you about the actual condition of the construction site. Details like topography, grading and drainage issues, labor sources can be analyzed by you. Moreover, while performing a cost estimate, the follow-up of this practice is mandatory for contractors too. Read more about construction cost estimates.
Failing to Consider Risks
Accurate construction cost estimates can be guaranteed if the person does consider the element of risks. He needs to understand that every construction project comes with certain contingencies and risks. Before doing cost estimation, a risk assessment job needs to be performed for sure! Furthermore, risk-assessment helps you in the decision making areas regarding whether to make a bid or not. In addition, risk-assessment assists you in identifying whether a project is too risky or too profitable. Things can eventually go wrong when an estimator fails to weigh risks as well as build in contingencies.
Making Guesswork and gambling on bids
Those who keep on doing guesswork and gamble on bids- they end up doing incorrect cost estimates for their construction project. Uninformed guesses and gambling on bids lead your project to a destructive state! Accurate estimates can be ensured when job costs are tracked properly. Labor, materials and equipment are the important job cost elements that should be determined on the current data available.
Failing to review Your Work
Accurate cost estimates are not prepared in one time job! Such a kind of job needs extensive and constant practice. Once your cost estimate report is prepared, review it again and again. Moreover, it is better if you share the estimation report with some senior person so that he can bring more improvement in it. Through constant reviewing, you can eradicate estimating errors. The failure to review your work may bring trouble when the project will be practically started. It is recommended to take some time out and carefully review your work. Furthermore, you should double check your measurements and math. There are lots of mobile apps that help you manage to lower the risk of making such mistakes. And the least available for you is to use a calculator. In a concrete estimation job, there is no room for math error so remain vigilant.
Ignoring less-obvious costs
One should not disregard the importance of less obvious costs while he prepares cost estimates. These are soft costs and generally include the elements of permits and inspection fees. It is seen that these costs are often ignored. Moreover, these left out costs end up bringing thousands of dollars harm for your construction project. Most importantly, this same cost type also includes the cost of temporary power and dumpsters, and site prep. Some estimators forget to add tax too. One should not avoid these overlooked costs. It is better to make a proper checklist and add these less obvious costs in them and further add them in your cost estimation report.
Hence, these are the common mistakes that each one us have to avoid while preparing construction cost estimates. We have just highlighted 5 of them, you can think of more! Along with that, underestimating labor costs is another common blunder shown by estimators. It is true that labor costs are tough to estimate but ignoring them in the estimation report is not the right away. You have to consider for sure how many hours as well as how many workers the respective construction job requires. This cost helps you identify whether subcontractors are needed or not. Remember if you are hiring subcontractors then you need to consider any tax implications in your country, such as the regulations required under the Construction Industry Scheme in the UK. Yes, there is more to come from the construction and cost estimation world, so stay tuned with us. For any queries, ask from us anytime.
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