Scaffold bid scope sheets, drafted from the bid documents for your estimator to check.

A bid arrives as a set of drawings, a general conditions section, an access or logistics narrative and usually an addendum or two. Your estimator reads all of it for what a takeoff can't count: which elevations, how high, for how long, who else climbs it, and what has to stand over the sidewalk meanwhile. The numbers come later, and they are only as good as that first reading.

In the test, AI reads copies of those documents from closed bids and drafts a scope sheet: elevations and heights exactly as stated, duration and rental period, sidewalk shed or overhead protection requirements, and any engineered scaffold trigger the local code names, each with the page it came from. Conflicts between documents and anything left blank go on a list for a person to resolve. Nothing gets counted or priced, and your reviewer marks each sheet against the scope your estimator sent.

Height has a definition, and it isn't always the building's. New York City's Building Code measures a scaffold from its base to the top of its uppermost vertical member, counting any temporary structure it rests on but no permanent one (section 3314.1.1). A scaffold standing on a sidewalk shed adds the shed's height, and one on a setback roof starts at that roof. So the sheet gives each elevation's height as the documents state it, says what it is measured from, and lists any page that mixes the two.

Engineering triggers sit in more than one book. Federally, 29 CFR 1926.452 sends pole scaffolds over 60 feet, tube and coupler and fabricated frame scaffolds over 125 feet, and outrigger scaffolds at any height to a registered professional engineer. New York City's section 3314.3.1 starts from the other end: a registered design professional designs every supported scaffold unless six things all hold, among them no outrigger, no hoist rated above 2,000 pounds, no more than 75 pounds per square foot and a height under 40 feet. The code treats the permit and the design as separate tests, so one can apply without the other. In California, Title 8 Section 1637 has a civil engineer registered in the state set an engineered scaffold's working load and wants those drawings available at the job site during erection. The draft quotes whichever trigger the documents or your own code notes name, and never rules on whether it applies.

Overhead protection has its own drawing and its own clock. Section 3307.6.2 calls for a sidewalk shed under any scaffold above a walkway, and for work on a facade more than 40 feet above the curb when the sidewalk lies within half the height of that work. A registered design professional designs every shed, at 300 pounds per square foot, or 150 where work stays under 100 feet and nothing is stored on it, and the deck runs past the protected zone, farther above 100 feet. Local Law 48 of 2025 limited shed permits to 90 days, and a city rule effective August 13, 2026 has each renewal accompanied by a report, except for sheds serving new building, enlargement or demolition work under permit. A proposal reading "shed for duration" still has to say how those renewals are handled.

The drawing list shows what the bid left out. Where design is required, section 3314.3.3 wants site-specific plan and elevation views of the base structure, tie-ins and anchors, netting with its type and maker and the effect of wind on it, any hoist on the scaffold, the levels loaded at once, nearby cranes and other temporary work, and the job numbers of the shed and the permit it relates to. Section 3314.3.4 adds a review of the load a scaffold puts on a roof, setback, vault or shed. A bid set may settle some of that and leave the rest open, so the sheet says plainly which items were stated and which weren't.

Ground, equipment and the fine print. OSHA's letter of August 1, 2000 treats a concrete slab as firm enough to skip mud sills, warns that compacted soils swell and heave and that asphalt has little compressive strength even when cold, and puts the foundation in pre-job planning. Plant work scopes by equipment: Roseville Electric's 2026 request covers gas turbines, heat recovery steam generators, cooling towers, crystallizers, sumps and tanks. And unit prices hide work. East Bay MUD's bid form folds lighting, confined space air monitoring and a safety plan into each cost. Your reviewer will look for the surface under each leg, who else uses the scaffold, and anything buried in a price that the sheet failed to raise.

With your reviewer's yes, new bid sets get the same draft for about 30 days, before the takeoff starts.

Your estimator approves every scope, and a person signs off each item before it goes anywhere. Proposals still leave your office the way they do today, and anything after that is a new decision at its own price.