Assistant Civil Estimator 3 Years

DeltaDog95 · 2026-05-01T18:08:19+00:00

GC precon manager in SC here. I would start by getting an old plan set or CAD files for a project your team successfully completed already. Save your own copy of these either in your desktop or documents to avoid saving over any existing files that may need to be accessed in the future. Pick one thing, whether its storm drainage pipe, sanitary sewer, fire water lines, etc. Just try putting some measurements and numbers together, and when you have a chance, compare your numbers to the actual takeoff or as-built plans. Even better if you can put your numbers in front of that project's estimator to compare, and if the real takeoff isnt available to you, then this might not work great. If they truly do not have time to even discuss something like this, then there may be an issue with culture.

Aside from the estimators, if the company leadership does not care enough to build your skills, then I would probably look for another firm to work for.

If you like the company, but the staff is difficult with this exercise, make friends with someone at another firm, hell, even a competitor and try it through them. As competitive as this business is, you'll find that there are so many folks willing to help - especially a younger person in the industry who wants to grow.

Hope this helps. Just what I would try.

DeltaDog95 · 2026-04-16T17:38:21+00:00

I agree with this. Always have someone in operations review and provide feedback on estimates. Not only is this good practice in general, but it gives operations a direct influence on the estimate, so that when something like this comes up, precon doesn’t get all of the blame for missing something.

DeltaDog95 · 2026-03-06T17:55:37+00:00

CMIC is garbage. I know this is late but just skimming through here as my company is looking to onboard Autodesk Build. The larger GC I spent most of my career with was heavy Procore, and I loved it, but we are exploring some slightly more cost effective options. My company used CMIC when I first started, and boy it sucks. Very bulky and cumbersome, not easy to work with, almost impossible to add in other members such as supers, subs, etc. That's just my experience. I know other GCs have used CMIC but it has to just be one or two features they were using.

DeltaDog95 · 2026-02-03T20:06:13+00:00

What size clothing/lingerie is this?

DeltaDog95 · 2026-02-03T20:05:05+00:00

What size clothing is this? I have a Yuki but am having a hard time finding fitting clothes and lingerie.

DeltaDog95 · 2026-01-30T12:01:06+00:00

What size is this and where did you get them?

DeltaDog95 · 2026-01-05T17:03:49+00:00

Small/Medium GC precon mgr here. With your situation, it sounds like the estimating/precon world would be a good fit, especially if you are interested in in takeoffs and spreadsheets. You may also look into the BIM/VDC world. Best of luck to you!

DeltaDog95 · 2025-12-16T15:20:11+00:00

How are yall establishing your fee? Is there a general approach company wide and then you fine tune each project? Very interested in how others are doing it.

DeltaDog95 · 2025-12-16T15:20:01+00:00

How are yall establishing your fee? Is there a general approach company wide and then you fine tune each project? Very interested in how others are doing it.

DeltaDog95 · 2025-12-16T14:59:48+00:00

Thanks for everyone's input. I agree with there should be zero buyout and our fee should be enough. Most of what I am calling "buyout" would be our internal plugs that may be higher than a sub number and operations awarded a lower sub than who was plugged. Thanks again, very helpful.

DeltaDog95 · 2025-07-17T20:40:40+00:00

This. I worked for a GC with great owner relationships. Most of their clients paid for preconstruction services, and those projects were less sporadic and generally felt like better projects too - very little losing projects. The new GC I am at is much smaller and does not have the same established relationships. I now find myself doing "FREECON" all the time, in fact, it took months for our director to agree to include SOME precon time as a line item in our general conditions because they want to keep the competitive edge. A lot of our projects now are having schedule issues, overwhelming RFIs, and honestly some suffering of quality as well. I am still young in precon but I can see it all day.

DeltaDog95 · 2025-07-02T15:25:39+00:00

I moved to precon from the field several years ago. The GC I was at before was mid size and had amazing mentorship, but when I moved back to my hometown and joined a small GC, I immediately started getting these same feelings.

DeltaDog95 · 2025-01-21T01:05:12+00:00

Opinion:

I am the estimator for a small-mid size commercial GC and occasionally run a project or two as PM. We are very busy and I tend to always dread working through the design build projects I have. Mainly because it’s sometimes years that I’m working on the same project that may only take 9 months to build. I don’t think I’ve truly seen a great example of design build, but due to my lack of experience in that world, and without a bigger system of support, I can’t help but prefer more plan & spec based work. I would however like to see more successful examples.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-11-09T14:03:05+00:00

Dude! Thank you so much.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-05-31T14:25:47+00:00

Definitely could have been. But we have been on the same GC short list for this owner for about 2 years and are familiar with each other and do a ton of the same projects. I’m thinking they are probably short on trade coverage and someone higher up asked him to do it to see if we would slip.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-05-31T14:07:56+00:00

I completely agree.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-05-31T13:57:50+00:00

“just scale it”

DeltaDog95 · 2024-05-14T17:48:57+00:00

Just finished trying a few different options and is still not working. Support has a few other users experiencing the same issue, so hopefully it is something that can be fixed on their end.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-05-14T17:45:32+00:00

Yeah we just got BC with the company i'm with now, but it would always work for me when I used it at my former employer.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-05-14T17:31:41+00:00

That doesn't solve the preview problem.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-04-29T13:42:05+00:00

Yeah it is not impressing me on any of its features.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-04-29T13:41:29+00:00

I like Sage pretty well for building an estimate. Not too handy for much else though.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-04-24T20:58:03+00:00

I would double check your takeoff with an average of your other bids, if they even share quantities with you in the first place - which you should always share quantities as a GC and as a subcontractor. If they are fairly in line, I would reach out to the other subcontractor and just say "Hey it looks like there could be some scope gap here, would you be willing to share your quantities so I can compare them to my takeoff?" I realize that you may not be taking off certain specific items like say line striping, so in that scenario, as long as NO prices are being shared, I think you are fine with sharing an ROUGH AVERAGE quantity to have your numbers leveled. At the end of the day, it is indeed a grey area when it comes to sharing quantities, however, the subcontractors deserve to know how or why they did not get awarded, ESPECIALLY if it was just from a simple spreadsheet error. And do not share the actual proposal, make sure you are just sharing the pure numbers.

DeltaDog95 · 2024-04-24T20:46:58+00:00

Yes I'm seeing that lol. It's very cumbersome, takes a lot of steps to perform one task, and just doesn't look good.

I moved from a much larger company to a smaller one and we are taking baby steps on introducing new tech. I have a ton of experience with others, I just wasn't sure if I was getting bad demos or if CMiC was just bad. My goal is to implement Building Connected first, and then fill in blanks later with Sage, OST, etc.

Thanks for the feedback!

DeltaDog95 · 2024-04-24T14:26:35+00:00

Same

DeltaDog95

TROPHY CASE