PreConstruct AIConcrete
Concrete takeoff from foundations to elevated slabs
Outline a slab, click along a foundation wall, trace a footing or count the pads, pick a concrete type, and it becomes cubic yards and cubic metres, forms by contact area, rebar or mesh, vapour barrier, base and finish — every quantity with the arithmetic beside it.
Your first bid is free — a set up to 75 sheets, no card.
What it takes off
Slabs
Concrete ordered to the half yard with cubic metres in the working, granular base, vapour barrier rolls, welded wire mesh or rebar, edge forms from the slab's perimeter, and finish.
Foundation walls
Length times height less the doors and windows, times the wall's thickness, forms by contact area on one side or both, rebar by the square foot of face, and dampproofing.
Footings, pads, grade beams and pile caps
Strip footings and grade beams by the length — forms both sides, continuous bars with laps, keyways — and pad footings, pile caps and piers by the count, with bars each way less cover.
Columns, beams, elevated slabs, curbs and stairs
Columns by the count with forms, verticals and ties; beams by the length with side and soffit forms, bars and stirrups; elevated slabs by the area with soffit and edge forms, shoring and reshoring; curbs; and stair flights with their soffit, riser and side forms. A typical floor drawn once can repeat on as many floors as the building has.
Foundations, flatwork and volumes
ICF walls with corner blocks, waterproofing membrane, drainage board and weeping tile; slab control joints and perimeter insulation; driveways, sidewalks and exterior steps; and any outline by a depth you type, in cubic yards or cubic metres.
From the schedules
Footing, pad, grade beam, pier, column and beam schedules are read row by row — mark, size and reinforcing, metric or imperial — and any row can become a concrete type with its sizes and bars, for you to check.
Rebar the way the drawings write it
Callouts like 15M @ 400 E.W., (3) 15M CONT. and #4 @ 12 in. O.C. T&B are read with their bar size, count, spacing and direction. Canadian bar sizes from 10M to 55M and imperial #3 to #11 are both understood.
Concrete notes, checked by you
On request it reads the set's concrete notes for strength in MPa or psi, CSA exposure class, air entrainment and thickness, and shows each with the sheet and words it came from. Nothing is applied until you check it and press for it.
A proposal per trade
A company that bids concrete and other trades can view the estimate one trade at a time and send a concrete-only proposal, with the markup kept inside the unit prices.
What it does not do
- It is not an engineer. Mix design, reinforcing design and every size come from the structural drawings and specifications.
- It does not lay out post-tensioning or engineer shoring. Tendon feet come from the rate you type from the post-tensioning drawings, and shoring is bought by area.
- It reads the text on the drawings; it does not count symbols, and it cannot promise to read every schedule or callout a set prints.
Questions estimators ask
- Does it work in metric?
- Choose imperial, metric or both for your company. Concrete is still ordered to the half yard, metric schedule sizes like 600 x 250 are read as millimetres, and rebar can be bought by the kilogram using Canadian bar sizes like 15M.
- Can it read my footing schedule?
- Yes, when the schedule is printed as a table of marks, sizes and reinforcing. Each row it reads is shown with its words and sheet, and becomes a concrete type only when you press for it.
- Is forming included?
- Every part of a concrete type is optional: forms by contact area, rebar, base, vapour barrier, dampproofing, keyways, finish, shoring, pumping, curing and winter heat can each be on or off, because on many jobs forming and rebar are separate subs.
- What does it cost?
- Plans start at 100 US dollars a month. Your first bid is free — a set up to 75 sheets, with no card.