Useful Cost Estimating

[Scott Hopkins]

How many people use the RS Means cost estimate feature in Revit? Being able to create quick and fairly accurate cost estimates for my clients was a big selling point for me when purchasing Revit. Unfortunately I have not found the cost estimating portion of the program to be particularly useful. I don’t know about the rest of you but I don’t design a lot of bowling alleys or aircraft hangers. Why don’t they have a residential component to RS Means? I have heard the argument that residential prices vary too much for it to work. But you could have categories to make this work. (Low-income, spec., middle income, Hollywood)

It appears that RS Means actually pulls very little information from the building model. In a 1-3 story apartment (the closest thing to a house) it does not make any difference how many windows you have in the Revit model. RS Means just puts in a number of windows based on the total square footage. You could have no windows shown in the model and RS Means will include windows in the budget. This actually could be a good thing for very preliminary estimates, but once you are past the first 8 hours of design you will want more detailed information. Maybe there needs to be a check box for “preliminary estimate”. Architecture is a balancing act between design and costs. Most architects (me included) have very little idea of what things cost. Knowing approximately how much I would save by eliminating a particular window would be extremely helpful.

What also seems strange is that the RS Means program asks you what the building materials are. And the material categories are quite limited. Shouldn’t Revit be able to tell RS Means this information? There should be a check box that says use building model materials. Also why is there even a costs parameter in family components? RS means doesn’t seem to give a wit about any of the families in the model.

The Cost Estimating feature would be such a valuable tool if it actually worked. Right now it is just appears to be a marketing trick. Well it sure tricked me.

[Steve_Stafford]

My sense of that feature from the beginning was: A sales pitch to buy the "real" RS Means Costworks application. That said, I don't know a thing about that product, if it exists, whether Revit can relate to it outside of the internal engine etc.

I agree it would be cool if it was more fully integrated.

I did find this interesting on a recent project. I did a costworks estimate (playing with building type choices) and came up with a 600K budget...the Design/Build contractor predicted about 350K, but wouldn't you know on "bid" day it came in at 575K.

[Wes Macaulay]

The RS Means database is +/- 10% at best for the building types covered by the costing module in Revit. While I wish it covered more information, I haven't been entirely disappointed with the results.

Residential Revit users are not well served by this module, however!

[aggockel50321]

I might be wrong, but I think R.S. Mean's estimating is all based on square footage, building type, and maybe a few extras if you have upgraded componets (i.e brick exterior, slate roof, etc) . Then they look at what region of the country you're in & adjust it for regional price & labor differences.

It's ok for budgeting purposes, but not for much else.

I've tried a few obdc data exports into Excell. With a little work,you can add prices, labor factors, extend it out, & finish with a much closer estimate.

[gregcashen]

I believe that you can order additional titles from RS Means, which is among the most widely used estimating book in the industry (in California I see RS Means the most, then Saylor). I remember going through a tutorial on this at some point and seeing a dialog box that told me where to order additional titles.

I did a little digging, and there is an executable in the CostWorks folder in your Revit directory called Costwork.exe which, when you run it allows you to order additional titles. I think once you order and install them, you can do more accurate residential estimates...could be wrong, haven't tried it. This is typically how this type of estimating software works...whether or not it's implemented properly or fully in Revit is another question.

[Steve_Stafford]

That's good info Greg, thanks!

[Scott Hopkins]

Wow!!!! :o

That is good news! Has anyone ordered any of these extensions? If so, how well do they integrate with Revit? It looks as if Revit comes with the "2002 Square Footage Costs" extension. I wonder if the 2003 Residential extension is worth the $150 price tag?

It appears as if we are traveling down the road of buying 3rd party extensions to make the program do what we need it to. Not necessarily a bad thing – just a more expensive one.

I still like the notion that one price tag pays for everything you need.

[gregcashen]

Actually , I look at it as more of a freebie thing anyway. They have provided this tool and the data for the first year for free.

I have seen some of the other estimating add-ons, and the good ones all pull info from either Saylor (Craftsman Publishing) or RS Means. If you go to Home Depot you can get a cd that has a lot (not nearly all) of the products they sell, with the Craftsman estimating tool...this is the same tool that is used in the cd that comes with the Saylor estimating books and some other 3rd party programs. I prefer the depth of info in the RS Means books, and RS Means is the leading provider of cost data. If you go to Barnes&Noble, Borders, etc., you will pay between $50 and $150 for the estimating books each year. We have a tool that is integrated into our CAD program!

I would much rather have this tool/data at my fingertips than a tool that JUST took the cost data out of revit families and added it up. It would be far too much work for me to make sure that everything had cost associated with it. Revit licensed the estimating modules that they obviously felt would be the most useful to people that were going to estimate...how often do you do an estimate on a residence? The answer is NOT ALWAYS. How often do you do an estimate on a commercial project....ALWAYS.

Anyway, I am glad that I have this tool...I wonder if we would have to pay to upgrade to next years cost data for the modules that are included or if Revit will continue to license the most recent cost data with each release...?? Hmm?

[ajayholland]

While recently working on a 24 unit apartment building, I looked at the cost report feature. Unfortunately, since I was working with linked files, I could not apply the tool to the overall composite model.

Alternatively, I went to the RS Means website and found their free QuickCost calculator, which gave a broad estimate based on building type and location.

Just being able to easily report the quantities from the model would be most valuable. If I could look at the data in a spreadsheet, I'm sure I could make something out of it.

I took a look, but couldn't grok the ODBC setup thing. Maybe this weekend... :beer:

-AJH

[Scott Hopkins]

I spoke with a gentleman at software support with RS Means. He said that none of the cost estimating extensions are available for use with Revit. The only extension that works is the one that comes with Revit. Apparently there has been some discussion about adding more extensions to use with Revit but this would be in the distant future. :cry:

[Ken Stowe]

I have built a Revit template with 25 schedule/quantity reports that, when exported to .txt files, automatically populate my Excel estimate and map to unit prices in CSI format. I use costs from a book called "Guide to Construction Costs" for Architects, Contractors and Engineers. It has localization and inflation modifiers too.

It takes about 20 minutes to complete an estimate once the unit prices are built into the Excel lookup table. Some of the mappings are very detailed, and some (like HVAC) are SF allowances. Let me know if you'd like to know/see more.

The template also has phasing/views set up for 4D construction "simulation".

[christopher.zoog51272]

I have built a Revit template with 25 schedule/quantity reports that, when exported to .txt files, automatically populate my Excel estimate and map to unit prices in CSI format. I use costs from a book called "Guide to Construction Costs" for Architects, Contractors and Engineers. It has localization and inflation modifiers too.

It takes about 20 minutes to complete an estimate once the unit prices are built into the Excel lookup table. Some of the mappings are very detailed, and some (like HVAC) are SF allowances. Let me know if you'd like to know/see more.

The template also has phasing/views set up for 4D construction "simulation".

Wow, that's awesome Ken. I'm sure we all would love to see/hear more about this!! :)

[gregcashen]

[Greed mode = on]

Yes! Please post this stuff!

[Greed mode = off]

Thanks!

[Scott D Davis]

Yes! Please post it!

Does it take into account residential construction costs? I'm doing a remodel for a friend and your estimating spreadsheet sounds like it would be perfect!

Thanks!

[Ken Stowe]

Good news and bad news.

First, the bad. My spreadsheet is a METHODOLOGY for mapping YOUR prices to YOUR Revit output. It is NOT a source of unit prices for current construction labor or material pricing for many types of construction. For that I suggest Means Books or CD's, or the book mentioned before - Don Roth's "Guide to Construction Costs", at http://www.bookworkz.com/construction/estimating/1557013519.html.

It will help you if you already have "adequate" skills in Excel, because you'll need to modify the spreadsheet to fit your models and your market.

Now the good. Once YOU select/adjust YOUR unit price and key it into the "lookup table" in the spreadsheet, you can do bazilions of estimates, while Excel does the "looking up", the detail pricing, a summary and a comparison to previous versions for you. There are 4 secrets to make your life easier than mine was as I stumbled a bit in Excel through this proof of concept.


I will have a live webcast/demonstration of the methodology/process on this Friday or Monday. For any who are interested, email ken.stowe@autodesk.com for a webcast invitation. That way, I will have a chance to clarify what it does and does not do before I post it.

I think that you'll like this process, but it is not a magic box.

I hope this helps.

[Scott D Davis]

What? You haven't plugged in world wide unit costs for construction yet???? :wink:

[gregcashen]

Here is an interesting link (http://www.tenlinks.com/NEWS/PR/graphisoft/101503_tline.htm) regarding Archicad and cost estimating...from tenlinks daily news

[Kevin Janik]

In Revit 6.0 I tried to run a CostWorks estimate but I keep getting an error

"Unable to calculate cost. Time limit exceeded waiting for response from CostWorks"


Any Ideas?