Job takeoff
Damp remediation and replastering takeoff
Carry out the remedy a damp specification names on the walls it names: dust sheets and a taped doorway, the plaster hacked off a band to the height the specification sets, a tanking slurry where that is the remedy, the band skimmed over its backing coat, the skirting (baseboard) refitted along it, the room repainted wall to wall once the wall has dried, and the skip, with the survey, an injected damp-proof course (damp course) or a membrane, the backing coat, the radiator and the sockets listed, and nothing prescribed or promised.
A takeoff is the trade word for the shopping list a job produces — every material, and how much of each, worked out by its own cited calculator.
- 8Measurements in
- 5Trades out
Choose the build-up
Each layer changes the materials below; the dimensions stay the same.
Calculators behind the other choices:
Compare one layer at these dimensions, with the rest of the build-up held as you have it:
Give the job once
Every figure on the right follows these, in the units you choose.
Been given a quote for this job?
Paste it into the damp proofing and replastering quote check: each line is read against these same calculators — what it leaves out, what it adds, and what to ask.
Check the quoteEvery trade, from those dimensions
then change a dimension, and each line shows what moved.
| Trade | Quantity | |
|---|---|---|
Masking and protection materialsMasking and Protection Materials CalculatorDust sheets over the room's floor, its length times its width, at the calculator's opening sheet size, laid before any plaster comes down, and the calculator's opening length of tape round each doorway you gave to hold a sheet across it, so the heavy, salt-laden dust stays in the room. The furniture and fittings left in the room are covered from the same sheets; the way out through the house is protected as listed work.
Why this quantity?
Resting on
Change any other figure on the Masking and Protection Materials Calculator | 3 items | |
Skim finish coat (plaster)Skim Coat Plaster CalculatorFinish plaster over the band, the treated length times the height you gave, at the calculator's opening thickness, coats and allowance, in kilograms in metric and pounds in imperial with its bags in the working. It goes over the backing coat once that has set, or over the plaster or board a membrane carries. The backing coat itself is listed work, its plaster the one the specification names, and no row here mixes it. Where the plaster comes off spoiled higher than the band, that extra area is added once it has been seen and agreed; it is never in this figure.
Why this quantity?
Resting on
The waste allowance: the calculator's working figure, a trade convention. | 53.59 lb | |
Skirting (baseboard)Baseboard & Trim CalculatorSkirting along the treated walls, refitted where it comes off sound or renewed, in stock lengths with the calculator's cutting allowance. That page only measures round a whole room, so this row hands it the treated walls folded into one: an imaginary square whose sides are each a quarter of the treated length, which brings back exactly that run of skirting, and no doorway is deducted because the treated length already leaves them out. New skirting on a treated wall is the timber and fixing the specification names, typically treated and primed on its back and held clear of an injected line; decayed grounds found behind the old skirting are flagged, and renewing them is not in this row.
Why this quantity?
Resting on
The cutting waste: the calculator's working figure, a trade convention. | 28.6 linear ft | |
Painting and decorating (decoration): emulsion to decorate the room, after a mist coatPaint CalculatorThe emulsion for the whole room, every wall from skirting to ceiling, two coats at the calculator's opening spread rate, with each door and window you gave left unpainted at the paint page's own sizes. A treated band ends partway up a wall, and paint stopped at its top edge would show as a line, so the decoration takes in the room you give and never the band alone. It waits until the meter shows the new plaster dry for as long as the specification sets, and uses the breathable paint the specification names where it names one. The watered-down sealing coat new plaster takes first (a mist coat) is not counted in this row.
Why this quantity?
Resting on
| 1.94 gal | |
Skip (dumpster)Skip & Dumpster Size CalculatorThe band's plaster and render hacked off at the loose depth you gave, with the old skirting, weighed as rubble because broken plaster is heavy: the working sets that weight against the container's limit before its volume. Gypsum plaster is kept apart from other waste where the waste carrier asks for it, and anything the asbestos check finds never goes in a general container.
Why this quantity?
Resting on
Change any other figure on the Skip & Dumpster Size Calculator | 0.5617 yd³ | |
Masking and protection materialsMasking and Protection Materials CalculatorDust sheets over the room's floor, its length times its width, at the calculator's opening sheet size, laid before any plaster comes down, and the calculator's opening length of tape round each doorway you gave to hold a sheet across it, so the heavy, salt-laden dust stays in the room. The furniture and fittings left in the room are covered from the same sheets; the way out through the house is protected as listed work.
Why this quantity? | 3 items | |
Skim finish coat (plaster)Skim Coat Plaster CalculatorFinish plaster over the band, the treated length times the height you gave, at the calculator's opening thickness, coats and allowance, in kilograms in metric and pounds in imperial with its bags in the working. It goes over the backing coat once that has set, or over the plaster or board a membrane carries. The backing coat itself is listed work, its plaster the one the specification names, and no row here mixes it. Where the plaster comes off spoiled higher than the band, that extra area is added once it has been seen and agreed; it is never in this figure.
Why this quantity? | 23 kg | |
Skirting (baseboard)Baseboard & Trim CalculatorSkirting along the treated walls, refitted where it comes off sound or renewed, in stock lengths with the calculator's cutting allowance. That page only measures round a whole room, so this row hands it the treated walls folded into one: an imaginary square whose sides are each a quarter of the treated length, which brings back exactly that run of skirting, and no doorway is deducted because the treated length already leaves them out. New skirting on a treated wall is the timber and fixing the specification names, typically treated and primed on its back and held clear of an injected line; decayed grounds found behind the old skirting are flagged, and renewing them is not in this row.
Why this quantity? | 8.8 m | |
Painting and decorating (decoration): emulsion to decorate the room, after a mist coatPaint CalculatorThe emulsion for the whole room, every wall from skirting to ceiling, two coats at the calculator's opening spread rate, with each door and window you gave left unpainted at the paint page's own sizes. A treated band ends partway up a wall, and paint stopped at its top edge would show as a line, so the decoration takes in the room you give and never the band alone. It waits until the meter shows the new plaster dry for as long as the specification sets, and uses the breathable paint the specification names where it names one. The watered-down sealing coat new plaster takes first (a mist coat) is not counted in this row.
Why this quantity? | 7.01 L | |
Skip (dumpster)Skip & Dumpster Size CalculatorThe band's plaster and render hacked off at the loose depth you gave, with the old skirting, weighed as rubble because broken plaster is heavy: the working sets that weight against the container's limit before its volume. Gypsum plaster is kept apart from other waste where the waste carrier asks for it, and anything the asbestos check finds never goes in a general container.
Why this quantity? | 0.4 m³ |
Estimates, not a quote. Each row gives its base, the allowance on top, the adjusted figure and what to order; change an allowance on the row, or open its reasoning to see every figure it rests on. A trade's own page carries what it does not cover — open the one you are about to order against.
Labour and programme
Person-hours for the rows going in, from trade rules of thumb: a range for each piece of work, never a price.
- Masking and protection materials0.6 h (0.3–1.3)
- Skim finish coat (plaster)1.4 h (0.8–3.0)
- Skirting (baseboard)1.6 h (0.9–3.5)
- Painting and decorating (decoration): emulsion to decorate the room, after a mist coat6.5 h (3.6–14)
- Skip (dumpster)0.4 h (0.2–1.3)
About 11 person-hours in all, between 5.9 and 23.
Trade by trade
- Labourer1 labourerunder a quarter of a day
- Plasterer1 plastererunder a quarter of a day
- Carpenter1 carpenterunder a quarter of a day
- Painter1 painter1 day
About 1½ days, one trade after another at eight hours a day. Left out: drying and curing, deliveries, inspections, trades overlapping.
Labour and programme
Person-hours for the rows going in, from trade rules of thumb: a range for each piece of work, never a price.
- Masking and protection materials0.6 h (0.3–1.3)
- Skim finish coat (plaster)1.4 h (0.8–2.8)
- Skirting (baseboard)1.6 h (0.9–3.5)
- Painting and decorating (decoration): emulsion to decorate the room, after a mist coat6.3 h (3.5–14)
- Skip (dumpster)0.4 h (0.2–1.2)
About 10 person-hours in all, between 5.7 and 23.
Trade by trade
- Labourer1 labourerunder a quarter of a day
- Plasterer1 plastererunder a quarter of a day
- Carpenter1 carpenterunder a quarter of a day
- Painter1 painter1 day
About 1½ days, one trade after another at eight hours a day. Left out: drying and curing, deliveries, inspections, trades overlapping.
Setups you have saved
The build-up, the dimensions and any allowance you changed — kept on this device, and reusable on any job. Your prices are not copied in: they stay in your price book, so a setup never holds a stale one.
How far does a budget go?
At your own prices, with this build-up unchanged.
About this job
Damp in a wall has more than one cause, and each has its own answer. Moisture can rise from the ground through a wall whose damp-proof course (damp course) has failed or was never built in; rain or ground water can come through from outside where a path or a flower bed is banked above that course, or render or pointing bridges it; a pipe can leak inside the wall; or the air in the room can condense on a cold surface. The salts water carries up a wall stay behind in its plaster and draw moisture out of the air, so an old wall can read wet on a surface meter whether or not damp is still rising. That is why the work begins with a survey into the depth of the wall and a written specification, and why this page lists that survey as the surveyor's and never says which remedy a wall needs.
The page measures what follows from the specification, and asks for the two figures it sets: the length of wall treated and the height the plaster comes off to and goes back up to. The hacking off, a tanking slurry, a membrane, the backing coat and the skim all cover that band, the length times the height, and the skirting runs along its length. The decoration does not: a wall replastered along its foot is painted from the skirting to the ceiling, and round the rest of the room so the new plaster does not show, so the paint row follows the room you give. The remedy is one of three, whichever your specification names, and the page opens on an injected course in every market; that is a starting point for the figures, not a recommendation.
What goes back on a treated wall matters as much as the treatment. Plaster that has held salts comes off rather than being painted over, and a gypsum plaster laid straight onto a treated wall takes the salts up and breaks down again, so the backing coat is the salt-resistant coat, renovating plaster or sand and cement the specification names, with plastic or stainless beads at the corners, and a skim over it. New plaster takes time to dry before it can be decorated, and the wall is read with a meter before any paint goes on. The radiator, the sockets and the switches come off the treated walls and go back on the new plaster; where an injected course is cut into a wall shared with a neighbour in England and Wales, the notice the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 may require is the owner's to serve.
How each line reads
- Base
- What the calculator gives for these dimensions, before anything is added.
- Allowance
- Cutting waste, a lap or spare stock — named, with where it comes from, and changeable on the row.
- Adjusted
- The base with its allowance on top.
- Order
- What to buy: the adjusted figure in whole boards, bags, rolls or lengths.
The order this happens in
Quantities do not tell you the sequence, and on this job the sequence is where the money goes wrong.
- Have the walls surveyed and the cause found, and the specification written down: which walls, which remedy, the height the plaster comes off to, the backing coat, and how long the wall dries before it is decorated; have any old textured coating or boarding on those walls checked for asbestos before it is touched.
- Agree who puts right what the survey flags outside, a bed banked against the wall, a leaking gutter or downpipe, render bridging the course or a blocked air brick (foundation vent), since the treatment inside does not answer any of them.
- Clear and sheet the room, tape a sheet across the doorway, isolate the circuits feeding the sockets and switches on the treated walls and have the electrician take them off and make the cable ends safe, and drain down and lift off any radiator hanging on those walls.
- Take off the skirting, then hack the plaster off the band back to the masonry to the height set and brush the wall down; where salts or damp show higher once the plaster is off, stop and have the extra area agreed before going on.
- Lay the remedy specified: drill the bed joint and inject the cream along the treated walls, making good the holes on an outside face; or brush or trowel the slurry onto the masonry in its coats; or plug the membrane to the wall with its joints and every plug sealed as its maker details.
- Lay the backing coat the specification names over the band, with plastic or stainless beads at the corners, or dry-line the membrane on its plugs or battens; let it set, then skim it.
- Leave the wall to dry for as long as the specification gives, reading it with a meter, then fix the treated skirting along its foot, rehang the radiator and refill the system, and have the sockets and switches refitted and tested.
- Decorate the room's walls in the paint the specification names, clear the skip and the sheets, and hand over the survey, the specification, the installer's paperwork and the electrician's certificate.
What this takeoff does not cover
- Diagnosing the cause and choosing what answers it: the surveyor's, listed as its own item.
- Ground and path levels, gutters, downpipes and render that bridge the DPC, and their repair.
- Leaking pipes, and condensation and its causes in the room's air.
- Decay in joists, lintels, floors or timber grounds (flagged).
- A drained channel and sump at the foot of the floor.
- Moving a socket to a new place.
- Any promise that the wall stays dry.
- The party structure notice to a neighbour, and any award or agreement under the 1996 Act, which are the owner's to serve and settle.
- Dehumidifiers and temporary heaters beyond the job's own.
Quote check
Been given a quote for this job?
Paste it into the damp proofing and replastering quote check. Every line of it is read against these same calculators and your measurements. Quantities only, never prices.
What it leaves out
Every line this takeoff has that nothing on the quote reads as.
What it adds
Labour, removal, hire, fees — each named for what it is.
What to ask
One list of questions, ready to copy. Never a verdict.
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Frequently asked questions
- What does the damp proofing and replastering takeoff give for a typical job?
- Opened at Room length 4.5 m · Room width 3.5 m · Wall height, floor to ceiling 2.4 m · Length of the walls treated 8 m · Height of the strip-out and replastering, as the specification sets it 1 m · Doors 1 · Windows 1 · Loose waste, as a depth over the band 0.05 m, it orders: Masking and protection materials, 3 items; Skim finish coat (plaster), 23 kg; Skirting (baseboard), 8.8 m; Painting and decorating (decoration): emulsion to decorate the room, after a mist coat, 7.01 L; Skip (dumpster), 0.4 m³. Opened at Room length 15 ft · Room width 11.5 ft · Wall height, floor to ceiling 8 ft · Length of the walls treated 26 ft · Height of the strip-out and replastering, as the specification sets it 3.5 ft · Doors 1 · Windows 1 · Loose waste, as a depth over the band 2 in: Masking and protection materials, 3 items; Skim finish coat (plaster), 53.6 lb; Skirting (baseboard), 28.6 linear ft; Painting and decorating (decoration): emulsion to decorate the room, after a mist coat, 1.94 gal; Skip (dumpster), 0.56 yd³. Every figure follows the dimensions you give it.
- Which calculators does the damp proofing and replastering takeoff run?
- 5 calculators, one to a line: Masking and Protection Materials Calculator, Skim Coat Plaster Calculator, Baseboard & Trim Calculator, Paint Calculator, Skip & Dumpster Size Calculator. Each has a page of its own with its formula and its sources; the takeoff runs them all on one set of dimensions.
- What does the damp proofing and replastering takeoff leave out?
- 9 things, each named on this page: Diagnosing the cause and choosing what answers it; Ground and path levels, gutters, downpipes and render that bridge the DPC, and their repair; Leaking pipes, and condensation and its causes in the room's air; Decay in joists, lintels, floors or timber grounds (flagged); A drained channel and sump at the foot of the floor; Moving a socket to a new place; Any promise that the wall stays dry; The party structure notice to a neighbour, and any award or agreement under the 1996 Act, which are the owner's to serve and settle; Dehumidifiers and temporary heaters beyond the job's own.
- Can I check a quote for this job against the takeoff?
- Yes. The damp proofing and replastering quote check reads a quote's lines against these same calculators and your measurements, and reports what it leaves out, what it adds and what to ask. It reads quantities, never prices.