Concrete Construction Estimating

This manual explains all concrete work, from simple slabs to highways and multi-story buildingsEveryone who works with concrete should have these step-by-step instructions, illustrations, charts, reference data, cost estimates and examples You'll learn the best methods for transporting, pumping, and placing concrete; the right type of joint to avoid cracking; how your mix and curing method affect strength; what curing compounds to use and more. Includes how to avoid hot, dry and cold weather problems.

Provides the 300 most useful manhour tables for practically every item of construction. Labor requirements are listed for sitework, concrete work, masonry, steel, carpentry, thermal and moisture protection, doors and windows, finishes, mechanical, and electrical. Each section details the work being estimated and gives appropriate crew size and equipment needed. This new revised edition contains National Estimator, a computer estimating program. This fast, powerful program and complete instructions are yours free on high-density 3 1/2" disk when you buy the book.

Excerpt from Estimating Concrete Buildings The process of building, in the time-honored acceptation of the term, consists of the assembling of units already manufactured, and the fitting of them into their appointed places. Methods of accomplishing these things have been developed through the successive experience of generations of builders until they have crystallized into a traditional practice the cost of which may be prejudged with reasonable accuracy. Concrete construction, on the other hand, is less a process of building than it is of manufacturing. Cement, sand, stone, water and steel are brought together under conditions which produce a chemical action that fuses these elements into a whole quite different from the sum of its constituent parts. The consideration that this occurs on the spot where the unit produced is to remain as part of the finished structure, in no wise alters the essential fact that the process is one of manufacture. The traditional operations of the builder come into play mainly in the placing of subsidiary or subordinate units, and in supplying necessary fittings. The actual procedure of concrete construction is still very far from approximating standard practice. Still less has there emerged any generally accepted system for keeping track of the individual cost of the innumerable items that enter into this type of work. Hence no satisfactory basis has been supplied for making estimates in advance of the actual undertaking. Estimates are made, of course; but in the great majority of instances they are little more than the shrewd guess of one whose cost instinct has been sharpened by experience. Few are the estimators of concrete construction whose computations follow any scientific plan, or whose results are capable of analysis. Indeed, it may be said of estimators, as of poets, that they are seldom able to explain their figures once these have been allowed to cool. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.