Presented byKaran Avad Vinayak Kendre Rohan Desarda Apurv Vaidya Gaurang Malviya

Introduction
The only safe and secure way of estimating construction

costs is to take out the quantities of works under the different items and multiply these quantities by the prevailing unit rates as per the DSR issued by the PWD. However, this can be done only when drawing, specifications and bill of quantities have been prepared and made available to the contractor. When accurate cost of construction is not yet required and a rough idea is sought at some stage to help decision makers decide whether to proceed or not, approximate estimates of construction cost are used.

Purposes served by Approximate Estimation

To Give a rough idea of the probable expenditure A rough idea of the probable expenditure has to be obtained and if this appears feasible, then further details may be considered. Administrative Approval In case of government and public works, proper sanction has to be obtained for allocating the expenditure required for detailed investigations, which is given based on approximate cost estimating method Valuation and rent fixation Sometimes it is required to estimate the cost of existing structure for one or more reasons, in these cases the approximate methods are adopted

Methods of Approximate Estimating

Service Unit Method
Square meter of floor area Cubic meter of the building Rough grouped quantities Comparison of costs at relative dates

The service unit method

Buildings are constructed to serve a specific purpose. For example, hospitals are designed to accommodate

certain number of beds. Each bed is then considered as a Service Unit. Whenever a building is constructed, the Engineer or Architect keeps record of the place, actual cost, number of service units and year of construction etc. From this record it is possible to work out per service unit. This cost is then adjusted to present day considering inflation and peculiarities of project and multiplied by number of units

Service Unit Method (Total Cost)

Total cost = cost per unit x number of units

Floor Area Method

The floor area of the proposed structure is worked out

and then multiplied by a suitable rate. This rate of construction per square meter of floor area is worked out by dividing the known cost of construction of a similar building by the floor area of that building The building must be first measured by its internal dimensions at each floor level and no deductions are made for internal walls, ducts, lifts or stair cases. There are some variations of this method as mentioned in the next slide

Floor Area method (Variations)

One way is to add all the usable floor areas and exclude

basement and roof Another way is to use certain rate for each floor, including roof and basement Using different rate for basement floor, other floors and roof Another way is to have the unit rate of the lower floor include basement and foundations and that for the top floor include roof

Floor area method (Total Cost)

Total cost = cost per square meter x total

project area.

The Cube rate method

This method is more accurate than the square meter

method because the depth of foundations and the height of the structure above the ground level are the additional dimensions taken into consideration. In order to use the method, the building volume must be first assessed Buildings with distinct types of occupation should have corresponding volumes assessed separately, for example, car park areas, shopping areas and office areas in a commercial building This method depends on a number of variables, like building types, proportion of wall area per floor area, quality of finishes and so on

Cube rate method (Total Cost)

Total cost = cost per cubic meter x total

project volume.

Rough grouped quantities

This method aims at overcoming the problems detected in

other single-rate estimating methods, by taking into account variations in plan shape and storey height. Though, this method was never totally adopted by construction professionals because it requires much more calculations than other single-rate methods and because the rates needed cannot be directly extracted from historical data. Basically, the utilisation of the method starts with the measurement of the building enclosure (comprising floors, external walls and roof areas). Each area is then multiplied by an appropriate weighing factor, thereby resulting the number of storey enclosure units

Rough Grouped quantities (weighting factors)

Floor areas, measured from the internal face of

external walls: basements x 3; Ground floor x 2; first floor x 2.15; second floor x 2,30 and add 0,15 for each successive floor. Roof areas, measured in its plan projection, to the extremities of eaves: roof x 1. External wall areas, measured on the external face of the walls: basement wall area x 2; Above ground level (without any deduction for openings x1.

Rough grouped quantities (Total Cost)

Total cost = unit cost rate x number of

storey enclosure units

Comparison of Costs Method

The approximate cost of the proposed structure is

found out by modifying the known cost of similar existing structure with due consideration to price fluctuation between the dates of construction of the old and proposed structure. This method gives best results but it is applicable to structures which are repetition of similar works.

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