Hi, I thought I would open up a more generic question.
How do you model and measure excavation for pricing purposes? We often underpin existing buildings to lower the basements. This involves digging out under foundations, casting new foundation walls, excavating the centre mass, and then casting a new concrete slab at a lower level to create taller basements. I can quantify the volume of material excavated for the foundation walls using the volume of concrete for new footings plus bulking factors, but this leaves the centre mass, which is an excavation from the existing floor slab down to the required excavation level. I have not been able to make a BIM component that quantifies this. The same applies to gravel below the new concrete slab; how do I create that?
They Gareth, It’s a great question, sounds like you do a bit of custom work.
My suggestion would be to use what you can inside the magic tools of Plus Design Build.
A couple of ways to approach it.
#1 Probably the most glitch proof way would be to create a new material under the “Floor Tool “ – Slab tool, that tool creates volumes automatically and then you could also duplicate the same drawn volume as the concrete also. You would have capacity to address depth and widths also.
I use this tool for blue metal/aggregate/as well as one off excavation. For all our jobs we just associate the linked recipe to our concrete material applicable.
You could also create a recipe that links directly to a concrete material that you draw e.g the concrete for under pining and associate an excavation material recipe so it automatically works it out as the same, then just add wastage accordingly.
#2
The only other way you could play around with the room set out and Quantities tool (which also measures volume) and replicate the entity info in the default tray to be identical to the sample one drawn straight from the tool from PlusSpec.
Hi Mitch, option 1 works just fine; thanks for the tip. I still don’t understand what the BIM objects are supposed to do regarding quantification other than a simple count. it would seem like a good tool to draw with, put in the model, and then do a takeoff and add it to the BOQ, but I can’t get it to work like that.
What is the size tab for? After clicking the unit of measure? it does something that will alter the volumes, but the actual value makes no sense, so I don’t follow
Thank you for the great suggestions Mitch. We love seeing our community helping each other out!
Regarding you original post @Gareth, another option to achieve the result you’re after would be to use the Custom Estimation Tool to apply an estimating material to the excavation geometry you’ve drawn in your model. If done correctly, the excavation amount should then appear in the takeoff so a price can be added, items can be linked with it & more. Note: If there are any materials missing from the Search Results you can create your own via this dialog (see steps outlined below).
Steps
Select the Unit of the desired material.
Enter text into the Search Products field &/or select an option from the Search Category dropdown field. Note: This step can be skipped if you like.
Select a material from the Search Results. Tip: To help save time, select a material that has similar info (i.e. texture image, category, etc.) to the material you want to create.
Click the Create Similar Product To Current Selection button below the material (this will appear above the Search Results).
Create a material by following the steps as you normally would.
Use the Sync Tool to get the changes (the drag & drop feature isn’t enabled for this dialog).
Tip: The tag or category of any material in this dialog can be adjusted via the Edit Tag & BOQ Category button below the selected material.
Regarding the BIM Tool, it’s purpose is to add estimation info to non-PlusSpec geometry in the model so that the item can be quantified in the takeoff. It’s main use is to add this info to components like appliances, fixtures, furniture etc. but it can also be used to add this info to other geometry in the model like posts, beams, fences, etc. that currently aren’t included in PlusSpec.
The Size field allows you to add a length, area or cubic value of the item regardless of the actual shape &/or size of the geometry this info is applied to in the model. Then, as long as Each isn’t selected for the UOM field, the value entered should appear in the Size column of the takeoff. Tip: Using the Quantity, Size & UOM fields together will make the item behave similar to a material within the takeoff (e.g. prices will work with sizes & not per instance, recipes can be linked with this size values, etc.).
Custom Estimation Tool to apply an estimating material to the excavation geometry you’ve drawn in your model. If done correctly, the excavation amount should then appear in the takeoff so a price can be added, items can be linked with it & more. Note: If there are any materials missing from the Search Results you can create your own via this dialog (see steps outlined below).
Sync Tool to get the changes (the drag & drop feature isn’t enabled for this dialog).
BIM Tool, it’s purpose is to add estimation info to non-PlusSpec geometry in the model so that the item can be quantified in the takeoff. It’s main use is to add this info to components like appliances, fixtures, furniture etc. but it can also be used to add this info to other geometry in the model like posts, beams, fences, etc. that currently aren’t included in PlusSpec.
