Builder plan sets into lumber takeoffs and material quotes, graded against bids you sent.

The plan set arrives as a PDF: floor plans, elevations, sections, a roof plan, and window and door schedules, sometimes with framing notes from the builder's engineer. The estimator reads wall heights and lengths, counts studs, plates, headers and sheathing, takes the trusses and engineered floor from their layouts, and splits the house into the loads it will ship in, from first-floor walls to exterior trim.

For the test, AI reads copies of the same plan sets and drafts each takeoff and material quote: item, count, length, the unit you sell it in and the load it ships with, priced from your records as of the bid date. Where a count would mean scaling the drawing rather than reading a written dimension, or a size is missing, the line goes to your estimator with the sheet named. Nothing reaches a builder.

One plan is several houses. A production builder often sells each plan in two or three elevations, each with its own front wall and roof line, plus structural options such as a third garage bay, a covered patio or a bonus room. Estimators keep a base takeoff and add or subtract for each elevation and option, so a start is priced from the base plus what was picked for that lot. The draft keeps that structure, and the success criteria say whether an option is graded as its own line or inside the house total.

Wall height decides the stud. Precut studs exist so a wall comes out at ceiling height once its plates are on. The Journal of Light Construction gives 92-5/8 inches for 8-foot walls, with two top plates and one bottom plate, and 104-5/8 for 9-foot ceilings. A house with 9-foot walls downstairs and 8-foot walls up calls for two stud lengths. Lumber is priced in more than one unit, too: DMSi lists piece, MBF and lineal foot among the units Agility can sell in, and says market costs can be imported from publications such as Random Lengths. A 2x10 at 16 feet is 26.67 board feet, so every draft line carries its piece count and the unit its price is set in.

The roof and the floor come from someone else's drawing. The residential code treats trusses as replacements for the joist and rafter framing it otherwise spells out. SBC Magazine describes the truss placement diagram as an erection drawing that repeats or identifies the truss maker's assumptions about the approved plans, and under TPI 1 section 2.3.5.4 a placement diagram used only to guide installation needs no truss designer's seal. Engineered floors are laid out in the supplier's software: Boise Cascade offers lumberyards and distributors BC Framer for 3D design and BC Estimator for engineered wood estimating, and Weyerhaeuser's suite includes Forte, Javelin and Estima. The draft takes those members from the layout or quote you send and removes the rafters and joists they replace.

The outside of the house is counted in squares and feet. GAF's data sheet for Timberline HD shingles lists three bundles and 64 pieces to a square, and 256 nails a square, or 384 where six nails per shingle are required. Starter and hip-and-ridge are separate products bought by the length of eave, rake, hip and ridge. On a re-roof with no plans, a measurement report does the counting: EagleView's sample report totals ridges, hips, valleys, rakes and eaves separately, applies its waste table only to shingle roof areas at 3/12 pitch or steeper, rounds up to a third of a square, and leaves ridge, hip and starter out of that table. The draft adds them from the edge totals.

What your reviewer watches. Usually the estimating manager or the senior estimator on your largest builder: studs at the wrong length for the wall, headers taken from a plan note that a later revision changed, trusses and stick framing both counted for the same roof, an option priced into the base house, waste added twice, and lines in the wrong load. The waste factors themselves are your estimators', written into the success criteria before anything is graded.

When your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, the same job runs on incoming plan sets for about 30 days.

Every draft waits for an estimator to check, change or throw it out, and only your team sends a number to a builder.

The live run has a fixed price you see before signing; a next job is priced by itself.