How many nights have you stayed up
late working on an estimate that you
couldn't complete until you found a
price for just one special item? It was a
way of life for me until I discovered
construction cost books. Although
many of the items in these estimating
aids were not exactly what I was looking
for, the books' price tables were
better than a guess.
Soon after I discovered computers, I
noticed that the same cost data was
available on disk. But early programs
were cumbersome, and it was still easier
to flip through the books and enter
the information manually.
But times have changed — hard
drives are bigger, CPUs are faster, and
software is more