Masonry takeoffs by wall type, with every tag and elevation that doesn't agree listed for your estimator.

On a school addition or a hospital wing, a masonry wall is described in several places at once. The floor plan carries a wall tag. The architectural wall types give the wythes, unit size, insulation and air space. The elevations show coursing, soldier courses and control joints, and the structural notes say where the reinforcing goes and which cells take grout. Your estimator walks every wall, splits it by unit and height, and works out block, brick, mortar and grout, joint reinforcement, ties, flashing and lintels. The hard part is spotting where those sheets disagree before the number goes out.

In the test, AI reads copies of those documents and drafts the takeoff by wall type, with each line tied to the sheet it came from. It also lists every wall tag or elevation that shows up on one document and not the other. It writes no price and no bid, and your estimator checks every line against what your team carried.

The structural sheet carries defaults the wall tag never mentions. Sheet S-320 for Massillon West Elementary, issued July 12, 2023, says that if vertical reinforcing isn't shown on the plans, it is #5 at 32 inches on center. One full-height bar goes at each jamb for every 4 feet of opening width, and another on each side of a control joint. Continuous 8-inch bond beams run at bearing elevations and the top of the wall, elevator and stair shafts take bond reinforcement at no more than 4 feet on center, and grout goes in low-lift at 4 feet maximum. The sheet's own schedules give bond beam bars by wall thickness, lintels by mark and span, and piers by mark. The draft gives each of these its own line, with the sheet and note beside it.

Bond pattern is a quantity. The Brick Industry Association's Technical Note 10 builds its quantity table on running or stack bond and then adds correction factors: a fifth more brick for common bond with full headers every fifth course, half again for English bond, a third for Flemish. A standard brick goes from 655 to 786 per 100 square feet in that common bond, before any waste. Massillon's Eastside school lays split face in one-half running bond and utility brick in one-third. The University of Houston's reinforced block section spaces joint reinforcement at 8 inches on stack bond walls, unless noted otherwise, against 16 on ordinary single-wythe and multi-wythe walls. The Ohio School Design Manual even lists block scored to look like stack bond while laid in running bond, so an elevation that reads as stack may not be.

Block counts by face; grout counts by width. The Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association's TEK 04-02A divides net wall area by the face of one unit, which gives 119 units per 100 square feet of 8-by-16 block after waste, the same at any width. Pilaster, corner and bond beam units get counted alone. Grout works the other way: it follows wall thickness, how much the unit absorbs, and whether it is pumped or bucketed, and the same TEK advises against grouting conventional 4-inch units at all. Ohio's section, which points to ASTM C476, the Standard Specification for Grout for Masonry, gives hollow units 6 inches and smaller fine grout and 8 inches and larger coarse grout. It also describes sound-absorbing block for 8-inch and 12-inch walls, and Massillon calls for a lightweight unit rated at 2 hours, so the draft keeps each type on its own line.

Ties, flashing and joints live in the notes. On multi-wythe walls Massillon's section wants one metal tie for every 4.5 square feet at no more than 36 inches across and 16 up, with extra ties within 12 inches of openings. Its joint reinforcement sits at 16 inches, tightened to 8 in foundation and parapet walls. Ohio wants ladder reinforcement where wythes go up together and an adjustable type with double-legged pintles where they don't. Control joints show how far apart the documents can be: the Concrete Masonry Association of California and Nevada says their locations should never be left to the contractor, Houston's section has the contractor propose a layout when the drawings show none, and Northern Arizona requires them on straight runs over 20 feet. The draft lists every wall where joints are shown, where they aren't, and what each section says.

Where a wall sits can change what it needs. California's IR 21-1 lets the non-bearing, free-standing and low retaining walls it covers be grouted only in the reinforced cells when hollow units are laid in running bond, and it sends walls in other bonds to a different rule for Seismic Design Categories E and F. A wall that looks the same on another job can carry a different grout and steel scope. Your reviewer will look first at tags on one document only, structural defaults carried into the count, bond pattern factors, grouted cells, ties at openings and control joints nobody drew. Whether a wall meets a code stays with the engineer of record and your team, and nothing on this page is legal or engineering advice.

Once your reviewer says yes, the same job runs on new wall type sheets for about 30 days.

Your estimator approves every takeoff before a number reaches a bid, and every bid still goes out the way it does today.

The live job's price is fixed before you sign. The next job is its own decision, at its own price, with monthly support once one is running.