Welcome to Qstimates

Welcome to QStimates.

Having run a Building Company for over 26 years and completed countless extensions, conversions and new builds, I have always had a skeptical view and not least, a completely different approach, to estimating and completing tenders.

There has always been a huge gap in the market for an accurate estimating and quantities firm that understands real building methods, tenders and most importantly your clients. Chronically there are few builders that have made the transition to estimating, probably because they have had enough of this time consuming activity and they are busy with a full day's work load. In reality though, no-one knows their own business better and there will always be considerable skepticism of college educated surveyors and estimators with little or no practical  building experience. 

Another crucial reason and one reflective of the never ending price war in this market is that your clients do not want to invest in your time to produce accurate costs before going to an open market and obtaining competitive quotes. This is endemic to the industry. No-one wants to pay a sensible amount of money for an essential service or invest in their own build from the off. The result is a cut throat market, driven by low cost and heavily reliant on computers that cannot account for human expertise.

At QStimates, we understand that all your work at the early stages is prospective, fraught with pitfalls and cost risks, not to mention clients with unreasonable expectations, many of whom have watched Cowboy Builder and other terrible television shows that mar the name of the greater good. Realistically if you could credit check your clients or if you were extended the same trust we extend to your clients, there would be a quid pro quo and your expected cashflow a little more fluid.

We do use software. We generally use Plan Swift or Causeway as it is has a universal application and meets SMM7 and NM7. This allows us to measure everything accurately before we price each project individually by hand.

QStimates aim to be competitive but not cut corners. We use our hands-on building experience to ensure that we ask any relevant questions on specification and methods to ensure that no colds are caught. 

On behalf of the team at QStimates, I look forward to working with you.

Gavin Davis, Senior Partner