Carpentry & drywall estimating
in the trade
Board, framing, trim — counted properly.
Takeoffs and bid pricing for carpentry and drywall subcontractors. Three business days standard on a single-trade package — and a confirmed delivery date within an hour of you sending the plans. Every assumption written down, so you can argue with it before the bid goes in.
What gets counted
Quantities broken out by area, by level and by wall type — so when the GC asks why the third floor is dearer, you have an answer.
Board
- Regular, Type X and Type C, by thickness
- Abuse and impact-resistant
- Moisture and mold-resistant board, glass mat
- Shaft liner and area separation
- Cement board and tile substrate
- Layers counted per side, not averaged across the job
Metal framing
- Studs and track by gauge, width and spacing
- Deflection and slip track head conditions
- Furring, hat channel, resilient channel, Z-furring
- Backing, blocking and in-wall support
- Header and jamb framing at openings
- Bracing and kickers above ceiling
Assemblies & insulation
- UL-rated wall and ceiling assemblies, priced to the listed detail
- STC-rated partitions, sound attenuation batt
- Thermal insulation, safing, firestopping
- Head-of-wall and joint systems
- Control and expansion joints
Ceilings & finishes
- Acoustical tile and suspended grid
- Gypsum ceilings, soffits, bulkheads, clouds
- Level 1 through Level 5 finish, priced separately
- Corner bead, trim, reveals and casing bead
- Access panels, cutouts and penetrations
Rough carpentry
- Wood and light-gauge wall framing, by size and spacing
- Floor and roof framing, joists, rafters, trusses
- Headers, beams, posts and engineered lumber
- Wall and roof sheathing, subfloor
- Furring, strapping, nailers and ledgers
- Pressure-treated and fire-retardant-treated material called out separately
Blocking & backing
- Casework, countertop and shelf backing
- Grab bars, handrails and accessory blocking
- TV, equipment and fixture supports
- Door and window buck framing
- Roof curbs, nailers and equipment supports
- Counted by location, because that's how it gets installed
Doors, frames & hardware
- Door schedule take-off, by type and rating
- Hollow metal and wood frames
- Hardware sets priced against the schedule
- Rated openings and required labeling
- Installation labor separated from supply
Finish & millwork
- Base, casing, crown and standing trim
- Paneling, wainscot and wall cladding
- Casework and architectural woodwork
- Countertops — solid surface, quartz, laminate
- Shelving, closet systems, specialties
- Stairs, rails and balustrade
Where these packages lose money
Most of what goes wrong isn't the board count or the stick count. It's these, and they get looked at on every job I price.
On the drywall side
- Finish level buried in the spec. Level 5 across a lobby is not Level 4 with a bit extra — it's another full skim and a different labor number. It's usually in the finish schedule rather than the wall types, which is exactly where it gets missed.
- Deflection details at the head of wall. A slip track, a firestop joint system and a rated head-of-wall assembly all price differently, and the drawings often show one while the spec calls another.
- Wall types that change at a level. Partition schedules that read one way in plan and another in the details. I flag the conflict rather than picking the cheaper one and hoping.
- Heights taken from the wall type, not the section. Deck-height partitions priced as ceiling-height is one of the fastest ways to lose money on an interiors package.
- Waste factors applied like they're all the same. A corridor is not a curved bulkhead. Both get a factor; they don't get the same factor.
On the carpentry side
- Blocking that lives in three different drawing sets. It's in the architectural details, the interiors package and the equipment schedule, and it's rarely in the carpentry scope narrative. I go looking for it on purpose.
- Hardware sets read as a count instead of a schedule. Forty openings is not forty of the same thing. Closers, exit devices, electrified hardware and rated labeling move the number a long way.
- Treated material assumed, not scheduled. FRT and PT where the code requires it, priced as such, not carried at standard lumber cost.
- Millwork shop drawings, submittals and lead time treated as free. They're neither free nor fast, and on a tight schedule they're the thing that bites.
- Installation labor folded into supplier quotes. If the number came from a millwork house, it's usually material — the install is yours, and it needs pricing.
How your labor gets priced
Two contractors with the same takeoff should not get the same bid. Your crews hang, frame and trim at their rate, not an industry average.
So the first thing I'll ask is what you actually produce — sheets per man-day for hang, footage of tape or coats per day for finish, studs per man-day for layout, linear feet of wall framed per man-day, openings set per day, feet of base run per day. If you track it, I price to your numbers. If you don't, I use mine and put them in the summary in plain sight so you can tell me where I'm off. After a couple of jobs together I'm calibrated to how you build, and the bids get sharper.
The same goes for the stuff that isn't production: scaffold and lift time, stocking, protection, clean-up, off-hours or phased work, and the small-tools-and-consumables number most people forget until they've already committed.
Who this is for
The owner who still bids
You run the crews and price the work. This buys back your evenings and gets the bids out that currently don't.
The shop that's growing
More invitations than your one estimator can turn. Overflow capacity without a salary and a desk.
The GC's interiors package
You need the drywall, ceilings and carpentry portion priced properly rather than allowanced and hoped for.
Try it on a job you're actually chasing.
Your first takeoff is free: up to 10 drawing sheets on a real bid, or a typical floor or unit type on a bigger job. Send the set and the bid date and I'll come back within the hour with a delivery date.
Standard turnaround is for paying work. Give the free one a few days' runway.