How we think about the work
Notes from building the estimating engine behind QuoteSmiths: what breaks in construction estimating, why quantities are calculated rather than guessed, and what it takes to produce a bill of materials somebody can defend.
- Estimating29 August 2026
Why construction estimating breaks, and where the money leaks
Estimating still runs on spreadsheets and memory. The failure modes, why they compound on margin, and why deterministic take-off is the structural fix.
- Estimating26 August 2026
Deterministic quantities, not AI-generated ones
Vision AI reads the drawing. A deterministic rules engine calculates the quantities. Why that boundary decides whether a quote can be defended line by line.
- Estimating22 August 2026
What a take-off actually is, and why software keeps getting it wrong
A take-off derives every material quantity from the geometry of a plan, not from a list someone types, and here is where software keeps dropping the chain.
- Estimating19 August 2026
A bill of materials you can defend, line by line
When a builder challenges a line on your quote, the answer should already exist: the rule that produced it, the version it sits in, and who changed it.
- Studio12 August 2026
Building software you have to operate changes what you build
When the team that writes the code is the team that answers for it, the design changes: explicit rules, a record built in, and failures that are loud.