Every quantity, traceable to a drawing.
A bill you cannot audit is a bill you have to take on trust. Every line we issue carries the measurement behind it and the marked up PDF it came from, so when a subcontractor queries a quantity you settle it in minutes instead of measuring it again.
What we deliver
- —An NRM2 bill of quantities as an Excel workbook, issued unpriced, one line per measured item
- —Marked up PDFs behind every quantity, so any line in the bill can be traced back to the drawing it was taken from
- —A full architectural fit-out take off, or a single architectural trade measured on its own
- —Areas measured as gross internal area
- —Services take offs on application, priced once we have seen the drawing set
- —Where the set is reissued, a re-measure against the new drawings rather than a patched bill
What we watch for
- —A bill without its mark ups cannot be defended. When a subcontractor prices well over the measured quantity, the argument is about whose number is right. With no marked up drawing behind the line, the only way to answer is to measure the whole thing again, usually in the last week before return.
- —Gross internal area is not the area your client is thinking of. GIA is measured to the internal face of the perimeter wall and takes in columns, internal walls and plant. Net or lettable area strips those out. Measure one where the reader expects the other and the rate looks wrong by a margin that has nothing to do with price.
- —The scale bar on a reissued PDF is not reliable. A sheet exported or printed at a different size rescales everything on it, scale bar included. We calibrate against a stated dimension on the drawing rather than trusting the scale bar, and we measure against the revision you name, so a reissue is something you tell us about rather than something that passes silently into the bill.
- —Openings are where two honest bills stop agreeing. NRM2 sets out where a void is deducted and where it is not, and the rule is not the same in every work section. Two measurers working to different assumptions each produce a defensible bill, and the two do not reconcile.
Take Offs and Bill of Quantities, answered
Do you need a complete drawing set to start?
No, and waiting for one usually costs more than starting without it. We measure what is fixed, mark what is not, and list the assumptions against the lines they affect so nothing is buried. As the set develops we re-measure the affected sections rather than reissuing the whole bill. What we do need is to know which revision you want measured, because a bill against an unstated revision cannot be checked later.
Does the bill come priced?
No. A take off is a measure, and it is issued unpriced every time. If you want those quantities priced, that is a cost plan, which is a separate service and can be instructed alongside the take off or on its own. Where you want the number tested against the market rather than estimated, that is subcontractor coordination, separate again. Keeping the three apart is deliberate: it means the same bill can go to your own estimator, out to a subcontractor, or back to us, without anyone having to strip somebody else's rates out of it first.
What happens when the drawings are reissued part way through?
We re-measure against the new set rather than patching the old bill, because a patched bill carries quantities from two revisions with nothing on the face of it saying which is which. Where a reissue is substantial enough to mean re-measuring work already issued, we confirm that in writing before starting it. A reissue that does not change what we have already given you is absorbed.
Not the question you had?
Send us the drawings and the return date. We will tell you what we would need and what we would give you back, before anyone commits to anything.
The rest of what we do
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