Four Reasons Electrical Contractors Should Be Using Electrical Industry Takeoff Software Gather ‘round, electrical contractors, and hear my story. Recently, I installed an electric boiler in my home, replacing a failing gas boiler. The unit powers a hydronic heat system, giving us warm floors throughout. I’m a fairly handy guy — but not an electrician […]

The average person-hours required to produce a ton of structural steel has decreased from 12 in 1980 to just over 0.6 today. That’s a 180% efficiency gain. Apply that to your workday, and it would be akin to getting 40 hours of work done in just two hours. What if you could capture just a […]

“One of the best designed construction takeoff UIs on the market.” eTakeoff is proud to announce that Construction Executive Magazine has included SnapAI in their list of Hot Products for 2021. Construction Executive Hot Product Awards recognize products that play a transformative role in the construction industry. eTakeoff solutions received previous Hot Product awards in […]

Ninety percent of roofing contractors underestimate their bids. Let that figure sink in for a moment. While that statistic is a few years old, there’s every indication that it still holds true. A more recent survey conducted by Intuit found that only around 60% of contractors have confidence in their estimates. And one-third say they […]

Humans are hard-wired to look for patterns. Recognizing patterns allows us to predict and expect what’s coming. Pattern recognition is efficient — it speeds decision making, and that’s what makes it so valuable to estimators. Pattern search, Symbol search or auto count as it’s also called, is one of the 10 features to look for […]

Earlier, we highlighted the 10 features that matter most in a digital takeoff solution, with a promise to circle back to take a closer look into several of them. Construction assemblies should be one of the essential features in an electronic takeoff application, especially if you use a spreadsheet as your cost estimating tool, yet […]

Electronic or digital takeoff applications have become indispensable tools for the estimators that depend on them. Electronic takeoff is at least 50% quicker than manual takeoffs in our tests. Estimators that incorporate electronic takeoff applications into their estimating process can get more done in less time with fewer mistakes. Not all takeoff applications are created […]

Bought a two-by-four lately? How about a sheet of plywood? Since the start of the pandemic, lumber prices are up 280%, hitting an all-time high in early May. With futures for 2x4s jumping from $63 to $1,481 per thousand board feet, we are likely to see new pricing records set as spring turns into summer. […]

Where we’ve been and where we’re going Humans have been building things for nearly as long as there have been humans. And undoubtedly, when we started building, we started estimating what materials we’d need — writing them down in some way and adding them up. Here we take a quick walk through the evolution of […]

Some construction industry watchers have been predicting the demise of 2D takeoff since BIM modeling hit the scene some 35 years ago. The reality is that 2D takeoff is not going anywhere soon. Estimators need rapid, reliable access to accurate data, whether that comes from 2D digital drawings, 3D models, or a combination of both. […]