From time to time we are asked how we arrive at our prices. In generally there are two good ways to price construction work.
Most experienced contractors keep job costing records.
This is historical data on how long it takes for his firm's crew to perform certain types of tasks. With this information and updated materials and labor costs plugged in fairly accurate square foot and lineal foot pricing can be done. Such a method of pricing is much quicker than stick pricing and can be done by specialized computer software packages. Additionally there are also national averages for these tasks. They can be found in both books and software packages.