FAST
ACCURATE 3D ESTIMATING

FOR RESIDENTIAL BUILDING

We take the guesswork out of residential cost estimation for builders, architects, and homeowners.

We create a 3D model of the construction work and use this to develop a comprehensive cost breakdown including labour, materials, subcontractors, and equipment.

We then use views of the 3D model to communicate what is included to you and your client.

We call this Visual Costing ™.

Find out more about our innovative BIM Integration.

WHAT WE DO

We provide fast accurate cost estimates, along with

high quality client presentation documents.

We work with early stage concept plans or full working drawings.

Builders

Want to win the work you want
and control building costs by
improving your quoting?

Being asked to price a concept?

We can sort it.

Architects

Does your concept design fit the client’s budget?

We can help you know before it gets costly.

Homeowners

We can provide an independent cost estimate suitable for use with the banks, certifying your builder and controlling your budget.

Renovations

Our technology is ideally suited for renovations proven over hundreds of jobs from small renovations, reclads, extensions, adding stories, through to extensive rebuilds.

New Builds

We have worked on all sorts of new houses. Minor dwellings, designer homes, standard plans, modular housing, transportable homes, terrace houses, executive mansions.

Large Scale Housing

Gaps in your process?

We can develop customised services for group builders or multi-unit constructors.

Building the future

A unique aspect of the YourQS system is that our organisational knowledge is built into our software, whereas traditional estimating relies more on the knowledge of the estimator doing the work.

This means that as we get feedback from clients, or conduct research, we make improvements to the quality and accuracy of our costings, and this immediately is available to all our customers.

You benefit from the combined knowledge gained from over 2,000 projects and the experience of more than 200 builders.

Renovations

New Houses

Trade clients

Project value estimated ($Million)

Our Services

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Concept Estimates

Giving an early-stage idea of the project costs using assumptions before it gets expensive to make changes.

We’ll calculate construction or renovation costs for all trades from excavation to completion.

Our early-stage estimate will help you visualise your project construction or renovation costs.

Detailed Estimates

Giving us detailed plans will give you more detailed and accurate costs for your project.

Our client report will break down costs into separate areas works making it easy to understand.

Our Reports

We have prepared some sample reports to highlight the quality and details of the information we supply based on your drawings.

Our reports come with your logo embedded so you can pass them on directly to your clients.

Our Process

Drawings

Our process starts with you providing us drawings for the proposed work. Ideally this would include an existing floor plan (for renovations), proposed floor plan plus elevations and sections as required along with details of the key construction elements.

Fee Proposal

We complete a high-level appraisal of the drawings, write up our understanding of the scope of works, estimate the hours we will need to prepare the costing, and give you a fixed price fee proposal for this.

Confirmation

You review the scope of works, confirm that we have understood it correctly and give us the go ahead.

Book In

We book in the project and give you the expected date that we will have the first cut of our estimate back to you.

Modelling

One of our quantity surveyors will create the 3D model of the work.

Review

Another quantity surveyor in our team will review the 3D model and check that it has captured everything within the scope of works.

Pricing and Reports

We apply the current pricing to the schedule of quantities and generate the PDF reports. Our standard reports include a client presentation PDF, a detailed breakdown PDF, and an Excel version of the detailed breakdown.

Adjustments

We allow a small amount of time for minor revisions or adjustments after you have reviewed our reports.

Our Projects

Our People

Nick Clements

Managing Director MNZIQS

Nick is the founder, visionary, and driving force behind YourQS. He has overseen the creation of the YourQS software system, the research and development of our Visual Costing methodology, and he leads the team in providing a high quality,
client-driven service.

Jeff Coop

Quantity Surveying Lead

Jeff manages the workflow through the quantity surveying team. Prior to training as a quantity surveyor, Jeff has had a wide variety of roles from sheep shearing to building and
training as a teacher.

Taki Tuhaka

Quantity Surveyor

Taki is our primary scope of works writer and fee proposal calculator.
Taki has worked as a carpenter, draughtsman, frame and truss detailer, and estimator so he brings a wealth of practical construction experience
to the team.

Our Clients

Some of the clients we’ve provided quantity surveying or consultancy services to :

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WHAT PRICES DO YOU USE?

We can use your merchant price lists or our market rates database.  We use your labour rates and you mark-ups.  We provide market rate allowances for client choice items.

We maintain a database of subcontract rates, equipment hire costs, and the like by averaging information collected from projects.

WHAT DO YOU PROVIDE?

We provide you with a couple of standard reports, one is a priced quantity schedule for you to check through and satisfy yourself with the detail of what we have estimated.  It includes a breakdown of sub-trade costs, allowances, and details labour build-up.  The report is broken into separate scopes with a 3D picture and schedule of elements.

The other main one is a client estimate.  This gives a total price for each scope along with a 3D picture of the scope with  colour coded key and includes a schedule of the allowances.

See examples <<here>>

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

Our standard turnaround time is 10 working days but this can vary depending on our workload. 

If you need it more quickly, please get in touch and we’ll do what we can to help you.

Of course, these times are subject to availability.   We’ll confirm and agree a turnaround time when you confirm the job.

HOW ACCURATE ARE YOU?

There are two parts to answering this: is what I expect included, and have you calculated the costs correctly?  Our technology is a big advance forward in solving these two problems that are issues with any estimate.

By using a 3D model anyone can easily see what is included and just how big it is.  Our estimate report gives you a 3D visualisation for each scope, a short description of the work, a schedule of the building elements, and a detailed cost breakdown.

The cost breakdown does a complete “bottom up” estimate for every 3D element using its characteristics and dimensions.  Rather than relying on estimators gut feel for how long something will take and what it will cost, we have developed detailed costing algorithms based on industry best practice, suppliers installation information, years of experience, and feedback from our customers, to calculate the required materials, materials, equipment, sub contractors, and labour as accurately as possible.  It has taken years to research and develop our costing assemblies and they contain decades of organisational knowledge that is now available to you.

An experienced estimator could achieve the level of detail and accuracy by hand using traditional estimating methods, but it would take days to do this across a project, using the power of computers means that we can do it in minutes, and the accuracy is repeatable.

Bottom line, we aim at being within 5 – 10% for construction drawings and 10 – 20% for concept designs.

WHY ARE YOU DIFFERENT?

We use a 3D system to model the work.  This model has elements that represent the real world, like walls, doors, demolition, scaffolding, and so on.  Being visual, it is easy to see what is included and what isn’t.

We use these elements to calculate the costs involved in doing that work including labour, materials, sub contractors, and equipment.  The elements have dimensions but also are intelligent so know what they are and what they are made.   This allows for very accurate costs.