Concrete Estimating and Takeoff Services

We quantify CSI Division 03 from your structural drawings — concrete volumes in cubic yards, formwork in square feet of contact area, and reinforcing tonnage by bar size and grade — and deliver it as an editable Excel workbook with a marked-up plan set. Flat-quoted from your plan set before we start.

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What We Take Off

Concrete is the scope where the volume is the easy part. The cubic yards come off a set of plans in an afternoon; the formwork, the reinforcing, the finishes and the placement method are where the money actually sits, and they are measured in four different units against three different drawing sets.

Footingscontinuous strip, spread and combined footings, pile caps and pier caps, by CY with dimensions carried so the formwork contact area can be derived rather than assumed

Grade beams and foundation wallsCY by thickness and height, with contact area counted on both faces where the wall is formed free-standing and one face where it is cast against earth or a mud slab

Slabs-on-gradeSF and CY separately, broken by thickness, with thickened edges, drop panels, perimeter grade beams, trench footings and slab depressions carried as their own line items

Elevated slabs and decksCY of concrete against SF of deck forming, split by shored and unshored conditions, with composite metal deck interface identified

Columns, piers and pilastersCY and SFCA by section, counted individually rather than averaged, because column formwork cost tracks the number of setups and not the volume

WallsCY and SFCA by thickness and lift height, with architectural finish faces, form liner, rustication and reveal conditions flagged separately from plain structural walls

FormworkSFCA (square feet of contact area) by system, with reuse cycles noted, plus edge forms, bulkheads, keyways, chamfers and blockouts as separate quantities

Reinforcing steeltonnage by bar size and grade against ASTM A615 or A706, with laps and splices, bends, hooks, stirrups, ties, chairs and bar supports included in the weight rather than left off

Welded wire reinforcement and fiberWWR by SF and gauge, macro and micro fiber by CY dosed to the mix, kept distinct so a substitution can be priced both ways

Post-tensioning interfacetendon counts and layout where the slab is PT, quantified for coordination even where the tendons themselves are a specialty subcontract

Embedded itemsanchor bolts, base plates, weld plates, sleeves, dowels, waterstop LF, expansion material and column blockouts, cross-checked against the steel and MEP drawings where they are actually shown

Jointsconstruction, control, isolation and expansion joints by LF, with saw-cut depth, joint filler, sealant and dowel baskets carried by type

Finishes and curingSF by finish type from broom through hard trowel and burnished, plus curing compound, sealer, hardener, densifier and any specified floor-flatness treatment

Placement and accessCY by placement method, separating pump, chute, crane-and-bucket and conveyor, with boom pump versus line pump identified where access dictates it

Miscellaneous concreteequipment and housekeeping pads, light-pole and sign bases, curbs, stoops, splash blocks, thrust blocks and duct-bank encasement

How Concrete Quantities Are Measured

Every quantity below is reported in the unit the scope is actually bought and bid in — not converted into a single convenient unit that hides where the cost sits.

Footings, grade beams, pile capsCYNeat line volume from dimensions, with the formwork contact area derived from the same dimensions rather than estimated as a ratio.

Slab-on-gradeSF and CYBoth, always. SF drives finishing, curing, vapor barrier and joint labor; CY drives the concrete buy. Reporting only one hides half the cost.

FormworkSFCASquare feet of contact area — the actual formed surface. This is the labor quantity on almost every structural concrete package.

Reinforcing steelTONBar weight by size and grade, with laps, hooks, bends and supports inside the tonnage. Also reported as LF per bar size for fabrication.

Welded wire reinforcementSFBy gauge and spacing, with side and end laps added rather than taken at neat slab area.

Fiber reinforcementCYDosed per cubic yard of mix, so it is priced against volume and not against slab area.

Joints and saw cuttingLFBy joint type and depth. Control joints, construction joints and isolation joints are separate line items with separate costs.

Finishes, curing and sealersSFBy finish type and coat count against the exposed surface, not the formed surface.

Embeds, anchor bolts, dowelsEACounted individually by type and size. Averaging these across a floor plate is where embed quantities go missing.

Waterstop and expansion materialLFBy profile and width, following the joint layout rather than the wall length.

Concrete placementCY by methodPump, chute, crane-and-bucket and conveyor volumes kept apart, because the placement method can move the installed cost more than the mix does.

Who This Is For

General contractors carrying this trade directly, or checking a subcontractor's number before it goes into the bid.

Subcontractors pricing their own scope in this division.

Developers and owners validating a number they've already been given.

Material suppliers and distributors verifying a customer's order.

What You Receive

An itemized Excel takeoff, organized by division
A marked-up plan set — every quantity traces back to a location on the drawings
Labor, material and equipment split out separately
Waste and overage factors shown as visible line items
An assumptions and exclusions schedule

Marked-up concrete plan crop

What Moves the Number on Concrete

Formwork complexity, not concrete volume. Two footings with identical cubic yards can differ substantially in cost if one is a simple rectangle and the other is stepped. Contact area and the number of form setups drive the labor; volume drives only the material. A takeoff that reports CY and leaves formwork as a percentage has skipped the expensive half of the scope.

Floor flatness and levelness specification. A slab specified to a high FF/FL number under ASTM E1155 is a different installation from a broom-finished warehouse pad — different crew size, different finishing equipment, different pour sizes and different rework risk. The spec section decides this, not the plan.

Reinforcing congestion and splice type. Lap splices consume bar; mechanical couplers consume hardware and labor instead. Congested joints at columns and beam intersections slow placing rates well below the flat per-ton average. Both live in the details and schedules, not the plan view.

Placement access and pour sequence. Chute access at grade, a line pump through a basement, or a boom pump reaching an elevated deck are three different unit costs for the same cubic yard. So is a slab poured in eight strips instead of two, which multiplies bulkheads, construction joints and mobilizations.

Mix design and temperature protection. Strength class, admixtures, lightweight aggregate, corrosion inhibitors and fiber all change the delivered price per yard. Cold- and hot-weather placement adds blankets, heated enclosures, ice or retarders — real cost that appears in the specification's protection requirements rather than on any drawing.

Subgrade and vapor retarder assumptions. What sits under the slab — capillary break, vapor retarder thickness, sand cushion, compaction requirement — comes from the geotechnical report and the spec, and it changes both the excavation interface and the slab line item.

What We Need From You

A complete set is ideal, but rarely what exists. Send what you have — we will tell you at quote stage what can be quantified firm and what has to be an allowance.

Structural drawings — foundation plan, slab plan, framing plans, sections and typical details
Concrete and reinforcing schedules, including column and footing schedules
Specification sections for Division 03, especially mix design, tolerances, finishes and curing
Geotechnical report, where subgrade preparation or bearing capacity affects the foundation scope
Architectural floor plans, for slab depressions, curbs, housekeeping pads and finish transitions
MEP drawings, where sleeves, embeds, floor boxes and duct-bank encasement are shown

How It Works

1 Send your plans — PDF, DWG, DOC, images or ZIP, up to 100MB per file.
2 Get your quote — a flat price for the scope with a delivery date, confirmed in writing.
3 Approve — nothing starts until you confirm.
4 We take it off — quantities from the drawings and schedules.
5 Delivery — workbook, marked-up set, assumptions schedule.

How Pricing and Turnaround Work

Every project is priced individually from your drawings. Send the plan set and you get a flat quote for the scope before any work starts — no hourly billing, no open-ended engagement.

Turnaround depends on the size of the package and how many trades are in scope — which is why you get a firm delivery date with your quote rather than a generic promise.

Tools and Standards

Takeoffs are produced in Bluebeam, PlanSwift, Trimble, STACK, organized against CSI MasterFormat divisions — this scope is specified under Division 03 — Concrete.

Quantities and assemblies are read against the published standards that govern this trade, because the standard is what decides whether two apparently identical items are actually the same line item:

ACI 318 — Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete
ACI 301 — Specifications for Structural Concrete
ACI 117 — Specifications for Tolerances for Concrete Construction and Materials
ACI 302.1R — Guide to Concrete Floor and Slab Construction
ASTM E1155 — floor flatness and levelness (FF/FL) measurement
ASTM C94 — Specification for Ready-Mixed Concrete
CRSI Manual of Standard Practice — reinforcing bar detailing, splices and supports
ASTM A615 / A706 — carbon-steel and low-alloy reinforcing bar

Pricing is built on RSMeans cost data localized to your project's market, then reconciled against current supplier quotes and our own completed project costs. Every estimate states its pricing basis and the date it was priced.

Why Concrete Is Estimated Wrong

Formwork derived from a volume ratio. Applying a blanket SFCA-per-CY factor works on a rectangular footing schedule and fails everywhere else. Stepped footings, pilasters, wall openings, curbed slab edges and blockouts all add contact area without adding volume, and the factor cannot see any of them.

Slab thickenings and edge conditions taken at flat thickness. A 5-inch slab-on-grade with thickened edges, interior drop panels under equipment, and trench footings at bearing walls carries far more concrete than area times thickness. These conditions are on the structural details, so a takeoff done only from the slab plan will systematically come in light.

Rebar weighed from plan lengths with no laps or accessories. Bar scaled straight off a plan misses lap and splice lengths, bends and hooks, stirrups and ties, and the chairs and bar supports that hold it all in place. CRSI standard practice governs how the splices are actually detailed, and the difference is tonnage, not rounding.

Embeds and housekeeping pads left out entirely. They are rarely on the structural drawings. Anchor bolts follow the steel package, floor boxes and sleeves follow the electrical and plumbing drawings, and equipment pads follow the mechanical schedule. If the takeoff only reads Division 03 sheets, this scope goes missing.

One placement method assumed for the whole pour. Estimates commonly price every cubic yard as pumped, or every cubic yard as chuted. Real sites are mixed, and the site logistics plan — not the foundation plan — tells you which yards are which.

Related Estimating Services

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you take off formwork separately from concrete volume?

Yes — formwork is quantified in square feet of contact area as its own line item, with the dimensions it was derived from shown alongside it. Reporting concrete in cubic yards and treating formwork as a percentage is the single most common way a Division 03 number goes wrong.

Is reinforcing steel included, or is that a separate takeoff?

Included by default, reported as tonnage by bar size and grade with laps, bends, hooks and accessories inside the weight. If you buy rebar through a fabricator who does their own detailing, we can deliver the bar list separately so the two can be compared.

Do you apply waste factors to concrete?

Yes, and they are shown as visible line items rather than folded into the quantity — so if you disagree with an allowance for over-excavation, subgrade tolerance or pump priming, you can change one cell instead of rebuilding the estimate.

Can you handle post-tensioned slabs?

We quantify the concrete, formwork, shoring interface and tendon layout for coordination. The PT tendons themselves are usually a design-build specialty subcontract, so we quantify them for checking rather than presenting our count as the supplier's.

Do you split quantities by pour or by phase?

If the drawings or your logistics plan define pour breaks, yes — quantities come organized by pour, level and phase. That is what makes a takeoff usable for procurement and scheduling instead of only for bidding.

What if there is no geotechnical report in the set?

We take off what the drawings show and state the subgrade assumptions explicitly in the assumptions schedule. Over-excavation, engineered fill and vapor-retarder requirements can move the foundation number materially, so we flag them rather than absorb them silently.

Do you price the concrete or only quantify it?

Either. Quantities alone are faster and cheaper if you have current supplier and ready-mix pricing. Priced estimates carry localized material, labor and equipment rates, with the basis stated so you can see where every rate came from.

Can you work from a partial or in-progress structural set?

Usually. Send what exists — we will tell you at quote stage which quantities can be firm and which will have to be allowances, rather than discovering it after you have paid.

Send us your concrete plans and get a quote

Upload your plans or tell us what you need. We’ll reply with pricing and a delivery date.

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