Takeoff assemblies
An assembly turns a measured length, area or count into a schedule of materials. You set the build-up once; the quantities follow the measurement.
An assembly is a recipe. Example: a strip foundation. You measure the trench on plan as a line. The recipe turns that line into excavation volume, concrete, disposal, backfill and optional shuttering.
Carpentry, landscaping and structural tools sit in the same picker and stack: a joisted floor under acoustic flooring, a flat-roof structure under GRP, a door beside its own architrave.
Open the assembly tool, pick a template (or a firm custom assembly), and fill the build-up. Width, depth and thickness are metres unless the field says millimetres.
The drawing on the left is a cross-section. It updates as you type. It is not stored as pixels. The quantities use the dimensions you typed and the length you measure.
Shuttering on a strip foundation can be Auto (include past 1 m depth, or when the soil is not virgin), always on, or always off.
Custom assemblies are recipes your firm wrote. The AI can draft one. You review it. Nothing is saved until you accept.
Fields
- Trench width
- Width of the trench in metres. Used to turn a measured length into volume.
- Example: 0.600 m with 1.2 m depth gives 0.720 m³ of excavation for each 1 m of trench.
- Shuttering
- Whether formwork to the concrete sides is included in the schedule.
- Example: Auto includes shuttering when depth is past 1 m, or when virgin soil is not ticked.
- Wastage
- Extra material allowed on lines that use it (often concrete). A percentage, not a money field.
- Example: 10 means ten percent extra on the wasted line, not ten pounds.
Examples
Strip foundation 0.600 × 1.2
Trench width 0.600 m, trench depth 1.2 m, concrete 1 m. You then measure 20 m of trench on the drawing. Excavation is 20 × 0.600 × 1.2 = 14.400 m³. The line unit is m³, not linear metres.