Equipment quotes, leveled against the schedule before your estimator picks one.

On bid day, quotes arrive from the reps for each manufacturer the spec allows: a cover letter, a model list and a page of fine-print notes. Your estimator matches every scheduled tag to a model, checks capacity, efficiency and electrical data, notes the options, startup and warranty each quote carries, and covers what one includes and another leaves out.

In the proof of concept, AI reads the same quotes, schedules and spec sections and drafts the leveling sheet: a row per scheduled tag, a column per quote, each cell showing what the quote states and on which page, with gaps and exclusions listed under each quote. Prices stay exactly as the rep wrote them. Your estimator holds every draft against the sheet they built on bid day.

Each tag points to its own spec section. Owner specs number equipment by MasterFormat: Michigan State University's standard puts indoor air handlers in 23 73 13, Modular Indoor Central-Station Air-Handling Units, the University of Maryland, Baltimore puts rooftop units in 23 74 13, and New York State's master spec splits rooftop units into 23 74 16.12 for intermediate capacity and 23 74 16.13 for large, with scroll chillers in 23 64 23. The drive may sit outside Division 23: the Michigan State standard sends variable frequency controllers to the Division 26 section on variable frequency motor controllers. So a quote with a factory-mounted drive is read against two sections, and a quote without one leaves open who furnishes it.

Ratings only compare under the same rules. New York's rooftop section calls for AHRI 210/240 ratings on units under 65,000 Btu/h and AHRI 340/360 on larger ones. Under 10 CFR 431.97, air-cooled commercial package units of 65,000 Btu/h and up built from January 1, 2023 meet a federal IEER level, and those built from January 1, 2029 meet one in IVEC, a metric that also counts economizing and ventilation energy. Specs citing ASHRAE 90.1 point to Table 6.8.1-1, Electrically Operated Unitary Air Conditioners and Condensing Units, or Table 6.8.1-3, Water-Chilling Packages, where a chiller may take Path A or, where the table gives one, Path B, but must meet both the full-load and the part-load figure of its path. Clean water pumps built since January 27, 2020 carry a DOE pump energy index, capped at 1.00 for the classes the rule lists. The draft sets each stated rating beside the scheduled one and the rule cited, and certifies nothing.

Options decide what a price covers. Specs split items between the unit maker and other trades, and quotes follow. The Maryland standard has the unit manufacturer provide the roof curb, 14 inches high, and a roofing contractor install it, on a renovation the one who maintains the existing roof's warranty. New York's large rooftop section lets the engineer take controls, dampers and damper operators from the Division 23 control sections or from the unit maker, keeps a unit-mounted disconnect only where the electrical sections don't carry one, and asks for minimum circuit ampacity and maximum overcurrent protection on the single power connection. Extra materials hide in Part 1: Michigan State asks for three sets of filters for each air handler, for construction, for acceptance and for the end of warranty, plus a set of belts for each fan.

Startup and warranty drift furthest. Most of these sections want startup by a factory-authorized service representative; chillers ask more. New York's scroll chiller section can require the manufacturer's representative on site for a set number of days to leak test, evacuate, charge, start up, calibrate controls and train staff, plus cooling-season startup and winter shutdown through the first year, a second startup when the first cooling season begins if the chiller started in winter, the first refrigerant and oil charge, and factory tests the owner may witness. Its warranty can cover the compressor, evaporator, condenser or whole assembly for five years, materials only, labor only, or both. Maryland adds at least three years on rooftop ignition modules and control boards; New York, at least five on large rooftop heat exchangers.

What your estimator will check first: tags with no matching model, capacity or electrical data that miss the schedule, ratings stated under a different metric, curbs, drives, controls and spare filters left out without a word, startup short of the spec, warranty terms below it, parts-only coverage where labor was asked for, and freight, lead time and the date each quote expires.

After your estimator's yes, the job runs for about 30 days on live bids, building each sheet as the rep quotes come in.

A person reads every sheet before it feeds a number. Each gap names the quote and the page it came from, and questions for a rep are written out for your estimator to ask, never sent.

Before signing you see the live job's fixed price. Anything after it is quoted on its own, with monthly support from the day a job goes live.