Question About Estimating A Deck In CostEstimator Software

andrew07

I am trying to estimate a deck in CostEstimator, (I am new to using it and technical is not available now) the question is:

under the "deck framing section" or (any other section) does the "post anchor" or "post" section include digging the post and the concrete (it does not say in the description)? Because I cannot find it anywhere, thanks for the help.

Also is the price include tax and is it reflective of the material costs in my area. Thanks

Bob Kovacs

See now why I don't recommend pricing anything using canned software? lol

Does the post price include the footing? I doubt it, but who knows? If they don't tell you, you're SOL. Seeing how footings can vary so much across the country, it's doubtful that they included a footing cost with the cost of the post.

Regarding tax, most programs have a place to specify markups, with one of them being for sales tax. Again, I'd doubt that tax is included, since one tax rate isn't universal for the whole country.

As far as material pricing being reflective of your area, you've got to verify that yourself by comparing costs on some items to your actual costs. In most cases, by the time cost data is collected, assembled, and published, it's already out of date. Of course, how far it's off from reality depends on how volatile the market for that material is. Up until recently, you couldn't trust a copper price that was more than a day old.

Bob

andrew07

Thanks, I am new to this estimating stuff and its not very easy starting out its taking forever to get estimates done, I was looking for something faster so I thought this might be a good way to go, I guess there is going to be a learning curve to find out what works for me, or I have to get more experience, thanks for your input, what is the best way to go about it from your experience?