2026-11-04 Data How to plan winter crew hours from wind chill and the ACGIH warm-up schedule, with a steel erection example The NWS wind chill formula and the ACGIH work/warm-up schedule turn a cold-day forecast into break minutes and crew hours a contractor can budget. 2026-11-01 Data How to adjust a crew wage rate to another metro with BLS OEWS data, from $26 in Houston to $42 in Chicago BLS OEWS wages let an estimator scale a home-market crew rate to another metro. In this example a $26 Houston carpenter rate becomes $42 to $45 in Chicago. 2026-11-01 AI Eastern Construction says Tyce's AI bid review cut its preconstruction time at least 40% Tyce links drawings, specs, addenda and trade bids into one project model that flags scope gaps and contract risks and drafts proposals. 2026-10-27 Data How to set monthly weather delay days from NOAA climate normals, with a Chicago O'Hare example NOAA climate normals count rain days by month at more than 15,000 stations. This example turns Chicago O'Hare's counts into a work-day weather allowance. 2026-10-26 Data How to tie a fuel price adjustment to EIA diesel prices, with a 160,000-cubic-yard earthwork example Feature A fuel price adjustment pays for estimated gallons at the change in a diesel index. This example prices 160,000 cubic yards of earthwork. 2026-10-25 Data How to price delay cost from the liquidated damages daily rate and your own field overhead FAR and FHWA rules set liquidated damages from the owner's daily costs. This example adds a contractor's field overhead and tests Saturday shifts. 2026-10-25 AI BRG survey finds 68% of North American construction executives spent $250,000 or more on AI and 15% call it fully integrated BRG surveyed 109 builder and owner executives on where they use AI, what they spent, the savings they report and how they measure the return. 2026-10-24 Data How to price crew vehicle mileage with the IRS rate, which rose to 76 cents a mile in July The IRS business mileage rate is 76 cents for July through December 2026. This example prices a diesel crew truck's miles against $6.29 fuel. 2026-10-23 Data How to price per diem for a traveling crew with the FY 2027 GSA rates, $181 a day in most of the US GSA's FY 2027 standard per diem is $113 for lodging and $68 for meals. This example prices a four-person crew on a three-week out-of-town job. 2026-10-19 Data How to compute overtime premium on a 50-hour week, with a $40 wage that averages $44 Overtime premium is the extra half-rate on hours past 40. This example turns a $40 wage into $44 per hour worked on a 50-hour week. 2026-10-18 AI SketchDeck 3.0 adds connection material and revision matching to the AI steel takeoff that more than 500 estimators use Feature SketchDeck 3.0 reads structural steel PDF drawings, counts and sizes members, adds connection material and exports a bill of materials for review. 2026-10-17 Data How to compute an hourly rate for owned equipment with the Corps of Engineers method, with a $400,000 excavator example A worked example of the Corps of Engineers equipment rate method prices a $400,000 excavator at $93.99 an hour and $21.59 on standby. 2026-10-16 Data How to compute labor burden per hour worked, with a $50 wage that costs $70.86 Labor burden adds payroll taxes, insurance and benefits to wages. This example turns a $50 wage into $70.86 per hour worked and checks it against BLS. 2026-10-15 Data Prices of goods bought by construction rose 2.2% in September, led by a 24% jump in diesel Feature BLS producer prices for goods bought by construction rose 2.2% in September and 11.2% in a year. Nonresidential building prices rose 5.4% in a year. 2026-10-14 Data How to tie a steel escalation clause to a BLS producer price index, with a $1.2 million example An escalation clause moves a fixed price with a named BLS index. This example adjusts $1.2 million of steel with a 3% trigger and a 10% cap. 2026-10-10 AI Volve adds an AI layer that checks spec quantities against tender drawings and the IFC model Volve's tender software now takes a plain-language task, such as matching spec quantities to drawings and the model, and returns sourced mismatches. 2026-10-08 AI Togal.AI's takeoff benchmark scores the best general AI model at 34.0 out of 100 on 33 drawing tasks Feature Construction's Last Exam scores AI models on 33 takeoff tasks. GPT-6 Sol led general models at 34.0, and Togal's own tool scored 97.7. 2026-10-07 Data Commercial furniture prices rose 3.9% in the year to August as steel rose 23% Feature BLS says producer prices for commercial furniture hit a record in August 2026, up 3.9% in a year, as steel mill products rose 23.4%. 2026-10-06 Data How to measure labor productivity from daily logs and timecards, with a drywall example Units installed per labor hour come from the daily log and the timecards. This example tracks a drywall crew for 10 days against its estimate. 2026-10-03 Data How to track bid-hit ratio by client type, job size and estimator, with a 120-bid example Bid-hit ratio counts bids per job won. This example splits it by client type, job size and estimator, in counts and in dollars. 2026-10-02 AI Kuro raises €10 million for AI tender review that customers say saves about 90 hours per bid Kuro's software reads a tender's drawings, specs and bills of quantities, flags where they contradict each other and checks subcontractor bids. 2026-10-01 AI Quotr raises $4 million for AI takeoff software that it says cut 20-hour takeoffs to 1 to 2 hours Quotr's software reads PDF plan sets, counts and measures quantities, prices them and drafts a proposal. It raised a $4 million seed round on September 30. 2026-09-26 AI STACK IQ lets estimators work STACK takeoffs and estimates from Claude or ChatGPT STACK IQ connects Claude or ChatGPT to STACK takeoffs and estimates, and STACK includes it in paid subscriptions at no extra cost.