Customer Reviews

Estimating With Microsoft Excel: Unlocking the Power for Home Builders

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

After reading, and practicing with this book, I have built a database where I can change prices to reflect the current market, and estimate jobs quickly and efficiently. There is a lot of information on how to set this up in Excel. Now I don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on an estimating program. This book assumes you are familiar with construction, but unfamiliar with microsoft excel. This book will save you time and money in the long run.

Half of this book is about basics of the Excel program. Very little is about real estimating and working out profit and loss. If you were to use the markups described in this book, you would lose money. A better title for this book would be " Introductry estimating with Excel"...

This book is a great tool, it has helped me alot with my estimating projects, the book is quick and easy to apply. its much more economical than getting a sophisticated estimating software.

This book would be complete if it had an example applied to a certain project in each chapter. other than that its great.

Israel Montilla P. MPM.

Construction Project Manager

PROCON Consultants & Associates

This is a book we use almost daily - both internally, and with our clients who are professional homebuilders and remodelers. Yes it's only 138 +/- pages -- but every page is jammed with useful information and it's easy to find what you're looking for. There is no wasted space and no fluff. The author teaches you how to build a category-driven "database" and a front-end estimating interface using Excel. Work through the examples front to back and you'll have a great understanding of how to use Excel (or any modern spreadsheet software) to create a line-item cost estimate, while improving your Excel skills in the process.

This is the same basic methodology that was used to develop the commercial Excel-based product "Estimator Pro" which is sold by NAHB (National Association of Homebuilders). Even if you were considering that product, or the Maderasoft Estimator (another Excel-based estimating system developed by the same programmer who worked on Estimator Pro) I'd still recommend working through this book first.

NOTE: The activity of "Construction Estimating" has two components... counting what is on a drawing or other documents (the Quantity Take-Off) , and then calculating the cost of those items (the Cost Estimate). This is NOT "Blueprint Take-Off 101" nor is it a beginners' tutorial on construction assembly methods which is what I think some of the reviewers may have been expecting. It assumes you are a construction professional and know (for example) what components are required in an exterior stud wall or a cast-in-place foundation system. There are other good references in the NAHB bookstore about blueprint take-off and plan reading.

Garbage, the book is poorly organized and full of errors. The way it is written is very poor. It jumps up and down from the very beginning and does not flow as is supposed to do do. Remember this book is about estimating and estimating requires step by step organization and constancy. This book has none of it. I have work with Excel spreadsheets to do estimates for almost eleven years and this book did not add one cent to my knowledge or abilities. I am very sorry to have spend my money and my time with it.

After spending an hour I had to take a break half way through Chapter 3 and give a review. There are so many references (so far) to wrong cells for example; Pg 17 refers to a "constant in a formula", the book has "B1 "is the subtotal cost", the correct cell is B2.

The one star goes for the book giving good ideas (that can be improved upon) which can be used for building estimating work sheets. The four blank stars go to the editor or lack thereof.

IF the typo's are corrected and the book is truly edited then this could be a good resource. SAVE YOUR MONEY

I wanted a CD that actually shows examples of the work in the book. Not a gimmick to buy a program. The CD examples do not work as shown, if I want to purchase an estimating program I would have

Every time I open Excel it counts as a time being used for Estimator Pro, regardless if I wanting to work in the book or not. I use Excel for several things so since I had the Book and CD(less than 24 hours) now I have no times left to review the examples. Worthless is giving the CD Credit; the jury is still out on the book.

This is a book only 138 pages. From the beginning to end, all he does was to show off his Excel tricks. Virtually nothing for construction or estimating. If you want to know how to do this or that in Excel, why not "google" up some tips? (Online tips are always free)I purchased it, finished the book within a few hours, and came out with nothing. It came with a CD, but the purpose was to promote the author's estimating software, which is based on Excel but asking for $500. This is not cool...This book is not worth $35 I paid for. I heard from a friend that DeWalt Estimating series is adding a new book on spreadsheet estimating. I like their books better. Would look forward to new book and compare. But I really doubt any other book will be worse than this one...

I need help in the CD program which I purchased recently. Message appear like this: Digitally signed trusted certificate is not assigned to the macros; required certificate is not within its validity period. I checked the Tools, security, details sectrion and it reads that the product validity is 9/13/2002 to 10/2/2003. I need your help on this matter. The book is alright, all the info I need is there. But how about the program which I need in my job? Please help me.