Welcome back, now we're going to discuss the pricing part of being a cost estimator and cost manager. A guide to pricing, so pricing, really the main things involved with pricing is stripping back the material components and breaking it down into measurable parts associated to materials, labor and equipment. The key guide to pricing is you need to make sure it's accurate, reliable, it takes on broad market conditions, location factors, and it's project specific. There's two main ways to gather rates and attack the pricing components of estimating. The first one here on the screen is the very simple and straightforward way is an all-in rate. You'd go about this by having a rates database, some people have their own that they keep the track off and it could just be in an Excel spreadsheet. Like a lot of companies though, has it's own rates database. So that's a compilation of lots of projects over time, and recorded and benchmarked against each other. It's very useful to get quick pricing out of it, as a quick benchmark against the project you're working on at that given time. Other ways to get all-in rates are by looking at databases online and a good example is RS Means. One thing to bear in mind though with RS Means is it's very good, it's very useful, but you'll probably get lots of different pricing ideas from it, and not the exact price that you may well use. Really, my advice on RS Means is to really use it as more of a check against the rate that you're already using or compiled. And then the other way, obviously, is just by looking at previous projects that are similar to the project that you're working on. It's similar to the first one of the rates database but it's really just pulling out other estimates and other projects that you've worked on, and gathering rates from that basis. Your all-in rates will include your material, your labor and your equipment. It will be all included into that rate, and there'll be other associated costs involved which we'll come on to later in the module. This way of pricing is fine, it's probably more appropriate when you're doing a concept or order of magnitude estimate, or just doing a quick check or benchmarking exercise. The traditional way of pricing is going back to first principles, I'm going to go more into first principles in this module here. First principles is a more of a accurate way of getting direct costs. It's accurate knowledge of direct costs, you break down your material components, your labor components, and your equipment components. And you break it down even further into those components of materials, labor, and equipment. It's breaking down the costs to measure and to price. What contributes to the costs of materials? The actual purchase itself, delivery costs, including transportation. You could have storage costs, insurances, taxes, your actual labor costs. There's often a certain amount of wastage involved when you are pricing something up or measuring. So your wasted cost as well that you need to include in certain elements of the construction or particular estimate you're doing. And then lastly, you've got pre- and post-installation treatment, so that covers the main areas that affect costs of materials Estimating material costs, what we're going to do is we're going to look at an example of a concrete wall. We're going to really delve deeper into the formwork component of that and just discuss other areas involved with the concrete walls such as reinforcing the steel and the concrete mixing and placing. When estimating the cost of a concrete structure, how would you separate the costs? A bit like the other modules we've been discussing with cost estimating and cost management, the key here is organization and putting structure to how you're going to derive your costs and pool together your pricing. Here we're talking about how do you separate the cost to put a little bit of organization into it? If we're looking at cost of a concrete structure, straight away you need to split it up. There's going to be some formwork involved, there's going to be some reinforced steel, some concrete, some finishing involved, and some curing as well. First of all, you're splitting up your main components there before you start measuring it out and pricing. What materials can you use for formwork? What do you have to consider when estimating the costs for formwork? We're now delving into the formwork part of the list there we just discussed and that can then be broken down even further. What is formwork? It's basically a form around the concrete to give it structure, and it's around every single face of the concrete. You can have complicated shapes which obviously are going to be more expensive. Then you've got more simple shapes that are going to be less expensive. You can have different types of materials for your formwork. It can be lumber, it can be plywoods, steel, aluminum, and various other composition materials, including plastic and things like that. There's lots of different types. Material should be selected for forms, which will give the lowest total cost of structure, cost of form plus cost of finishing. The material defined by necessity of the reuse or repetition. You really want to get able to reuse the material again and again for that particular project for that concrete, for example. It's also general fabricated from standard-dimension lumber and plywood sheets, it's cut and fastened for particular shapes so there can be considerable waste involved there. Looking at the plywood component here of formwork, but different thicknesses, that's key, ranging from a quarter thick to right through to three quarters thick so that's inches thick. With waterproof glue as well, can be available in different sheets, 4 feet wide, 8 feet wide, 10 feet wide and 12 feet wide. It's all different sizes of plywood you use for that particular formwork. Sticking to lumber is three components here. For lumber, you got the standard lengths available in multiples of 2 feet with longer lengths carrying an extra charge. Nails 10 to 20 pounds per 1000 fbm for first use and 5 to 10 per 1000 fbm for reused formwork. FBM meaning foot board measure, so that's the volume of lumber basically. You've got your form oil, so you treat all the surfaces that will come into contact The concrete so it doesn't stick to the concrete, and it gives it a certain amount of lubrication. So normally 300 to 500 square foot per gallon. What you have to consider when estimating the labor cost for building formwork, Labor cost depends on size of the forms obviously, the kinds of material used. We discussed different types earlier. The shape of the structure. The location of the formwork. It could be above ground, or it could be below ground. The extent to which prefabrication may be used. So prefabrication will cost more because it's been built off site and transported to site. The rigidity of dimensions required. And the use of power equipment. So all of these come into the different types of labor involved with a particular formwork. So the process of formwork is quite simple really. It's made, actually, once, it's assembled on site. And it's left there for a certain amount of time, and then it's removed. So let's look at an example now. When estimating the cost of formwork on a CPI-concrete wall, that's a cast-in-place concrete wall, what data can you expect to have available to start your estimate? So here we've got a very simple example of a concrete wall. And so essentials are drawings, obviously. So you need to make sure you have sections, elevations, plans, all of that. You need to have your engineering sets and all other design documents involved, including specifications, and scope of works, and bases of the estimates, and bases of design. So this in example case, 25'4" wide, and it's just over 9' high. So we're going to look at the formwork involved in building this concrete wall. Other components you need to be able to drill down onto is all the fixtures and the ties. So here we've got two different types of ties. Top one being a snap tie, and the below one being a coil tie. So it's just the components involved in those particular ties. What is useful when you're measuring out and pricing your formwork, and the same goes for the entire concrete wall, you're going to use certain literature to guide you along the way. So there's lots of guide books that you would use. No matter what experience you are, what level you are as a cost estimator, you're still be referring to these guide books to lead the way on the particular components you need. And you can see here on the screen, a major factor that affects formwork and concrete is temperature and pressure. And that then leads to, also, the different components of spacing and ties involved. So here is a guideline on the screen that you would use when you're putting together the components for your formwork. So from that we've got an example. So the rate of filling the forms will be 4' per hour at a temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The sheathing will be three-quarter inch plywoods. And the studs will be 2 by 4". And wales be double 2 by 4" planks. So we refer back to the guidelines here. If you look it up, you can see that the maximum pressure is going to be 664 pounds per square foot. You're going to need to have maximum spacing of studs at 19". Maximum space of wales at 25", and it's always there, or thereabouts. So you can use 24, a maximum spacing for the ties of 31". So let's just drill in down to components of what you need to build your form work. And then you can obviously start applying labor to that, and rates to that as well. So it's sort of drilling down and breaking up the core components to get the answer that you're after. Okay, so for this example, the wall is 9'6" high and 25'4" long. The three-quarter inch plywood sheathing will be placed with the 4' width in the vertical direction, and the 8' length in the horizontal direction. So to work out the total quantity of sheathing for the vertical direction, it would be 9'6" divided by 4' equals 2.37. So, obviously, you don't want to do two, you'll use three sheets to make sure you have enough. And there'll be a certain amount of wastage there. And for the horizontal direction it'll be 25'4" divided by 8'. So that means you need 3.16 sheets. So, again, you round it upwards, you'll need 4 sheets there. So sheets per sides, 3 by 4 equals 12 sheets. And you want 2 sides to the wall, so it's 12 by 2 equals 24 sheets. So now we're going to look at the studs required for the formwork. Okay, so the length of the wall is 25. We want to get it to inches, so we're going to times it by 12. And then we're going to add 4, so that gives us 304". From our guide book, earlier, we know that we need to have spacing studs at 18" gaps. So, it's 304 divided by 18 plus 1 to round = 18. So studs for the walls are 2 times with both sides, two times eighteen equals thirty-six. So really, we are starting to understand the amount of lumber required here, and we need 36 pieces at 2" by 4" by 10' equals 240 fbm. So that's your volume of lumber, 240 fbm. So we've got our quantity now, out of analyzing the drawing of formwork and the components involved for the lumber. Now we're going to look at the wales, so again, height is very important here. It's 9' high, and we're going to convert it to inches. Inches are timesed by 12 plus the 6 equals 114". And space between the wales needs to be 24" apart. So very simply, it's 114 divided by 24 equals 4.75, meaning we'll need five wales. For each wale uses, it's 2 piece, it was double, so it's 2" by 4" by 12'. It's 2 piece equals 2' by 4" by 14'. So the number required, then, is 20 pieces at 2" by 4" by 12' equals 160 fbm, and 20 pieces. At two inches by four inches by 14 feet equals 187 fbm. So now doing the sills required, by looking at the drawing, two pieces at two inches by four inches by 12 feet comes to 16 fbm. And the same again at two pieces, two inches by four inches by 14 feet this time, because it was 18 fbm. So scab splices required. So these are just further supports, so per side it's two by five equals ten. We've got two sides, therefore, it's 20. The lumber required for that is 20 pieces. And sizing is two inches by four inches by two feet. Therefore gives us a calculation of 27 fbm. The brace is required just to one side. There's six feet with one at each end, so (25.3 / 6) + 1 = 5 required. So lumber is five pieces. That's two inches by four inches by ten, gives us the calculation of 33 fbm. For the stakes, this is also labored up when you're drawing, and when we had that up earlier, we require five pieces, two inches by four inches by three feet gives us a calculation of 10 fbm. So in terms of the nails, as we mentioned earlier, it was 691 fbm x 10lb/1000 fbm gives us a value of 6.9 pounds of nails required for the form work for that wall. So lastly, we've got the form ties, and so these ties actually tie the form work together as per the name. So the number per wale is 304 inches per 31 inches, gives us a value of 10, and per sides, we've got five rows by looking at the drawing, at ten per row, so 5 times 10 gives us 50. The area of the wall is 2 by 9.5 by 25.33 gives us the full area of 481 square feet. The maximum load on a tie is 481, divided by 2, and then we'll say 664 divided by 50 gives us the pounds of 3,194 pounds. There are 4,000 pounds of 3,000 pounds ties. Use the 4,000 or recalculate the tie spacing to limit it to 3,000 pounds. The summary of the materials to build form work there is plywood, we've worked out it needed 24 sheets. The lumber required is 691 fbm. The nails required are 6.9 pounds. And the ties required, we need 50 of them, roughly of 4,000 pounds. So there we go, we've drilled down there into the form work components and how you need to pick up further to then price it. So when you come to pricing, you next need to start looking at the labor components. And again, there's many guidelines out there that you would use as a cost estimator to give you that guidance of the hours involved in the work. So here we've got an example, here we've got quantities of three-quarter inch thick plywood, lumber and form ties and the labor hours required for 100 square foot of wall. So it's just based on 100 square foot. Got the heights down the far left, you've got the square foot of, say, 100 square foot. And then as you get taller, or as the height increases, the fbm of the lumber increases, the number of ties. And then that, on the far right, you can see the labor component, and that is the amount of hours it would take to either erect or remove a particular plywood lumber or form ties. We also got a carpenter laborer there, and you've also got help or assistance there as well to give you an idea.
