Rooms
- Floor area. Net area is measured to the inside faces of the walls, and it is the area you can floor or paint. Gross area is measured to the centre of the walls and is larger.
- Perimeter. The distance around the room, which is the starting point for baseboard.
- Ceiling height. The height that turns floor area and perimeter into volume and wall area. Rooms with sloped or vaulted ceilings need more than one height.
- Ceiling area and volume. Often the same as the floor area for a flat ceiling, but not for a sloped one.
Walls
A wall takeoff gives the length of each wall, and the total length of exterior and interior walls separately. Gross wall surface is the length times the height. Net wall surface is what is left after the doors and windows are taken out. Curved walls are measured along the curve, not along a straight line between the ends.
Openings
Doors and windows are listed by type, count and size. Plans rarely print every height, so a takeoff has to assume one. QWIKIT Plans uses 6'8" for doors and 3'8" for windows unless you set a height. Whatever you assume changes what you deduct from the wall, so write it down.
Net versus gross
Gross numbers are bigger, because they include the walls or the openings. Net numbers are smaller, because they leave them out. Both are correct. A painter usually wants net wall surface, and someone estimating the size of a building usually wants gross floor area. Mixing the two in one estimate is how a takeoff ends up wrong, so label every number.
The material quantities that follow
- Wall surface: gross, less doors, less windows, equals net.
- Drywall area: the walls, with the ceiling shown separately.
- Paint area: the walls, with the ceiling shown separately.
- Baseboard length: the perimeter, less the width of each door.
Here is a worked example. A 12 ft by 10 ft room with 8 ft ceilings, one 3 ft door and one window has a perimeter of 44 ft. The gross wall surface is 352 sq ft. With a 20 sq ft door and a 15 sq ft window taken out, the net is 317 sq ft. The ceiling is 120 sq ft, and the baseboard run is 41 ft after the door. The drywall, paint and baseboard calculators take these numbers on to sheets, gallons and pieces.
What a takeoff leaves out
A takeoff does not add waste, choose sheet sizes, count boxes of screws, apply coverage rates or coats, set stock lengths, or put prices on anything. Those depend on your supplier, your crew and your method, and they are yours to decide. A takeoff that quietly includes them is making decisions for you.
How to check a takeoff
- Every number carries its unit.
- The scale is stated, with where it came from and whether it was confirmed. See how to measure a PDF floor plan.
- Estimates are marked as estimates, and anything the plan did not show is flagged, not guessed silently.
- Repeated floors are counted once for each repeat, not once for the plan.
- Net and gross are never added together.
What QWIKIT Plans produces
For each room, QWIKIT Plans gives the floor area and perimeter, the wall area with the doors and windows taken out, the ceiling area, the volume and the baseboard length. It also gives wall lengths and lists the doors and windows it found, and it lets you correct what it found so the numbers update. It does not add waste factors, count sheets or price a job. The software is not released yet.