Goldenseal Estimating Software Topics-- Why Calibrate

Why Calibrate Goldenseal?

Goldenseal estimating software comes with a built-in database of construction unit prices-- costs that we calculated from our own experiences at Turtle Creek Construction, here in upstate New York.

Construction Price Variations

Of course, costs vary from one part of the country to another. They also vary between different types of businesses-- tract builders, custom homebuilders, and remodelers. And they'll even vary for different types of projects done by the same company-- costs will be much higher when gutting out a 100 year old building than when tacking something onto a new home.

To make our cost database as universal as possible, we store all labor as components in an Assembly. The components have the actual person-hours it takes to do each type of work. What that means is that for many businesses, it is possible to get accurate estimates "right out of the box", just by entering your local cost of labor.

We also store the actual material quantities it takes to do each type of work, so you can adjust material costs by entering prices from your local suppliers, or by making a quick percentage adjustment.

HINT: Click here for ways you can update material prices to get the best accuracy with the least amount of work.

Calibrating Construction Prices

As with any other price database that you get from an outside source, however, you probably won't feel you can use our numbers with confidence until you have "calibrated" their values to match your own company's actual cost of building. That way you can compensate for any regional differences, quality differences and any other "quirks" that will make your costs different from ours.

This section of our website explains how to do that.

Fortunately, once you've adjusted our cost database to your own costs, you'll have a personal construction database that will estimate correctly for a long time in the future, without further calibration. It's worth the effort!

Click here to see the first step in calibrating estimating prices.

Click here to return to instructions for calibrating estimates.
Click here to return to estimating topics.