The things people ask before they send a set. If yours is not here, call or WhatsApp and you will get a straight answer.
How do you work out the fee?
Estimating hours × £25 an hour, ex VAT. The hours come from the scopes you pick, the number of drawings, the sector and how clean the information is. Bundle several scopes and each extra one costs less, because the drawing set is only read once. Rush work carries an uplift because it displaces other jobs. Nothing is hidden in a package rate.
Do I pay before you start?
No. You send the drawings, we confirm the fee in writing, and you say go. We invoice on delivery and you pay by bank transfer on 14 days. There is no card payment on this site.
What do I actually get back?
An Excel schedule and a PDF summary as standard. Steelwork takeoffs come with member marks, section sizes, lengths, kg/m and tonnage by element. Priced work adds the material, fabrication, coating and erection build-up, plus clarifications and exclusions written for a tender return.
Can you work from a scan or a hand sketch?
Yes. Scanned sets, photographs and marked-up sketches are all fine — it is how a lot of refurbishment work arrives. Where something is unreadable we list it as a clarification rather than guessing.
Is my information safe?
Drawings go to a private folder, are never shared, and are deleted on request. We sign your NDA if you have one. If you are pricing against competitors, say so and we keep your enquiry out of any supplier conversation.
How fast can you really turn one round?
A domestic loft or a small frame goes back in 24 hours. A full tender pack on a complex set needs 3 to 5 working days to be worth having. If your return date is tight, tell us at the start and we will say yes or no straight away rather than letting it drift.
Can you price a whole project, not one trade?
Yes. Tick every scope the job needs and we measure them together into one bill — groundworks, frame, envelope, fit-out, building services and preliminaries. Pricing the whole job in one pass is cheaper than buying the trades separately, and the interfaces between them get checked.
What makes a contractor-led takeoff different?
We build as well as measure. Steelwork and metalwork we fabricate ourselves in our own workshop, and we buy in every other trade on live jobs. So the rates reflect what the work actually costs to carry out — access, sequence, waste, attendance — rather than a theoretical figure out of a book.
Still not sure?
Send the drawings anyway. We confirm the fee in writing before any work starts, and you can say no.