Rant: Finally tried digital takeoffs after years of paper and ruler

Ive been drafting for 25 years and always swore by my scale ruler and printed plans. Last month a client in Phoenix sent me a set of PDFs that were so mangled I spent 2 hours just trying to get a clean count on the rebar. I downloaded a free trial of a takeoff program and it did the same job in 12 minutes flat. Anybody else hold out on digital tools and regret the time you wasted?

3 comments

3 Comments

black.amy2mo ago

Have you noticed Lee that the program can't read notes the way we do, @lee_bailey65?

hugo23616d ago

That thing about second guessing yourself really hit home for me. I've been doing takeoffs for about 8 years now and I swear my gut used to catch mistakes before my eyes did. But now when the software flags something different I always stop and check it three times, which just slows everything down. It's like the program is making us doubt the skills we spent years building up, you know? @lee_bailey65 you nailed it with that rebar schedule example, I've had the same thing happen with concrete volume calcs where my head says 40 yards and the program says 38 and I end up wasting 20 minutes double checking.

lee_bailey652mo ago

The thing nobody talks about is how much of your memory you offload to that software. I've been at this long enough that I can spot a rebar schedule error from across the room just by feel, but now I'm second guessing myself because the program says different. Kinda messes with your instincts a little.