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Certified Residential Contractor/Project Mgmt

Estimating & Cost Control

22% of this exam

Quantity takeoff, unit conversions, waste factors, labor burden and productivity, plus earned-value cost control. Calculation-heavy: the conversions (27 CF per CY) and formulas (CPI = EV ÷ AC) do the work, and unit discipline decides whether you get the right answer.

Core concepts

Takeoff is units, then arithmetic

A quantity takeoff measures and lists the materials, labor, and equipment from the plans — the foundation of the estimate. Convert everything to the unit being priced before computing: concrete volume in cubic feet ÷ 27 = cubic yards. Add waste with quantity × (1 + waste factor) — 2,000 SF of tile at 8% waste = 2,160 SF.

Labor cost = productivity + burden

Productivity rates convert quantity to duration: quantity ÷ crew output per day = crew-days (12,000 SF ÷ 800 SF/day = 15 crew-days). Labor burden adds payroll taxes, workers' comp and liability insurance, and fringes on top of the base wage — pricing labor at the bare wage understates true cost.

Know your cost buckets

Direct costs are incorporated into the work (footing rebar, concrete). General conditions are project-specific overhead — superintendent, field office, temporary utilities. Home office rent and accounting are general overhead, recovered through markup. Questions test which bucket a cost belongs in.

Estimate types and earned value

Early in design, use a conceptual (order-of-magnitude) estimate from historical cost per square foot; detailed unit-price estimates need substantially complete documents. For cost control, CPI = earned value ÷ actual cost — below 1.0 means over budget. CPI measures cost efficiency, not schedule.

Key facts to know cold

Cubic yard conversion27 cubic feet = 1 cubic yard — the most-used number in Walker's
Waste factorOrder quantity = net quantity × (1 + waste %)
Crew durationQuantity ÷ crew output per day = crew-days
CPIEarned value ÷ actual cost; < 1.0 = over budget
Labor burdenTaxes + workers' comp + insurance + fringes added to base wage
General conditionsJob-specific overhead (super, field office, temp power) — not home office

See it drawn out

Fig — Quantity → cost: the three conversions
  1. Volume
    L × W × D ÷ 27 = cubic yards (slab: 100 × 50 × 0.5 ÷ 27 ≈ 93 CY)
  2. Waste
    Net quantity × (1 + waste factor) (tile: 2,000 SF × 1.08 = 2,160 SF)
  3. Labor
    Quantity ÷ production rate = crew-days (12,000 SF ÷ 800 = 15)

Where it lives in your books

The real exam is open book. Knowing which book and which tab answer this domain is worth as much as memorizing it.

manual

Walker's

Takeoff questions reduce to unit discipline: convert everything to the unit being priced (CY, SF, LF) before doing arithmetic. The 27 cubic feet per cubic yard conversion is the most-used number in the book.

4 recommended tabs

manual

Construction PM

Scheduling math (float, forward/backward pass) must be done, not found — practice it until the lookup is just a formula check.

5 recommended tabs

Lookup strategy

  • · Walker's conversion and waste-factor tables are organized by trade division — tab the concrete and masonry tables, the usual question sources.
  • · Earned value formulas (CPI, SPI) sit in the cost-control chapter of the PM text; verify the formula before plugging numbers, since inverted ratios are the standard distractor.

Reading isn't learning. Retrieval is.

34 questions in this domain, each with an explanation and source.