Concrete Estimating Services: Slabs, Footings and Yardage From Your Plans

A driveway is square feet, a footing is linear feet, a wall pour is cubic yards, and the truck you order is bigger than any of them. Concrete is the trade where a takeoff service shows whether it understands the work, because the easy mistake is to collapse all of that into one figure and call it a quantity.

What a concrete estimating service measures

• Slabs, driveways, sidewalks, patios and porches by square foot, with the thickness stated on the line.
• Footings, turndowns, curbs and stem walls by linear foot, with the section size.
• Foundation walls and retaining walls by area and by volume.
• Piers and pads as counts, each one its own pour, with the size.
• Rebar, mesh, vapor barrier and edge forming, carried with the pour they belong to rather than lumped at the bottom.
• Cubic yards for ordering, with or without a waste allowance, and the document should say which.

The three bases, and why your documents need all of them

You bid a slab by the square foot because that is how the builder reads it. You order it by the yard because that is how the plant sells it. You form a footing by the foot. A takeoff that reports only yards cannot be compared to the builder's budget; one that reports only square feet cannot be ordered against. Insist on the basis you bid on and the yardage you order against, on the same document, and on a marked-up sheet colour-keyed by pour so you can see which lines are which.

Waste, and where it should live

What you place is more than what you measured. A service should tell you whether it grosses up the yardage, at what rate, and whether it shows the waste as a separate line. On a customer-facing estimate a separate "waste" line is an invitation to ask for it to be removed; a waste allowance folded into the quantity, with the net figure available to you, is the form most concrete subs want. Either way, know which one you are getting before you price the job.

What to put in the scope note

• Thickness for every slab and depth for every footing, because the drawings sometimes give one and not the other.
• Which elements you bid: flatwork only, foundation only, or the lot, and whether retaining walls and site concrete are in.
• Supplements: rebar, mesh, vapor barrier, edge forming, and whether you want them measured with the pour.
• Waste: apply an allowance at your rate, or leave the net volume.

What it costs

Published starting prices for a single-trade concrete takeoff sit between about $150 and $350 per plan set from the services that publish one, with a trade-specific provider starting at $249 and turning sets around in two to five business days. Most providers quote after you send the plans. The full comparison, with each provider's own published terms, is in our takeoff services cost guide.

The checks before it reaches a bid

• Confirm one printed dimension against the takeoff's measurement of it.
• Check that every slab has a thickness and every footing a section; a missing one means the yardage is a guess.
• Compare the yardage to the square footage by hand for one slab: area times thickness in feet, divided by 27.
• Know whether waste is in the yardage before you order.
• Read the pricing line by line if there is any; a rate you did not set is a rate you have not agreed to.

Written by the team at Opulence Built, who also run an insulation and concrete contracting business. We mention our own software where it is relevant and say so when we do.