Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

Quote check

Check a rainscreen cladding quote

Paste the quote you were given and enter your measurements. Every line is read against the job: what the quote leaves out, what it adds, which quantities sit outside the computed range, and what to ask. Quantities only — never prices.
  • 9Lines the job needs
  • 8Measurements
  • QuestionsNever a verdict

How the quote is read

Each line of a rainscreen cladding quote is matched to the line of the job it names, or marked as something the Rainscreen cladding on battens takeoff does not measure — labour, removal, hire, fees, or anything else. Work the takeoff lists as part of the job but gives no quantity for is read as that work, not as something the quote adds.

The job’s own figures come from 8 measurements — length of wall clad, walls end to end, height clad, windows, window opening width, each, window opening height, each, doors, outside corners, cavity barrier lines across the gap — run through the same calculators as the takeoff, so the two give the same figure for the same job.

Reading a rainscreen cladding quote

A cladding price may stop at the boards, or run from the wall outwards through the drained gap that keeps the boards off it, and the two are different jobs. Worth seeing each of these priced: the membrane on the wall, the timber that forms the gap (two layers of it behind upright boards), the perforated closers that let air in at the foot and out at the head, and the trims at corners and round windows; and worth asking whether taking off any old cladding, and sheeting the opened wall at night, are in the figure.

The fire items are the ones to settle before agreeing a figure: whether cavity barriers are in it at all, along which lines and round which openings, whose drawing places them, and what test evidence arrives with the products. Worth asking, too, what the boards are and how they are finished: the species and treatment of timber, whether a fibre-cement or composite board comes coated from the factory, and whether staining or painting on site is part of the price.

Three steps

  1. Give your measurements. The page opens on a typical job so it has something to show.
  2. Paste the quote's lines as they came, or add them one at a time. Leave the prices in — they are taken out, never read.
  3. Read the report: what is left out, what is added, what sits outside the range, and one list of questions to send.

Your quote

The rainscreen cladding quote you were given

Paste from an email, or open or drop a PDF, Excel, CSV or text file, or a photo of the quote. Amounts of money are taken out before anything is read — this page compares quantities, never prices.

Nothing you paste or open leaves this device.

or one the job needs:

The reading

What the quote says, against the job

Rainscreen cladding · Length of wall clad, walls end to end 52 ft · Height clad 17 ft · Windows 6 · Window opening width, each 4 ft · Window opening height, each 4 ft · Doors 1 · Outside corners 2 · Cavity barrier lines across the gap 1Length of wall clad, walls end to end 16 m · Height clad 5.2 m · Windows 6 · Window opening width, each 1.2 m · Window opening height, each 1.2 m · Doors 1 · Outside corners 2 · Cavity barrier lines across the gap 1

  • What it leaves out

    Every line the job needs that nothing on the quote reads as, with the quantity your measurements produce.

  • What it adds

    Lines this job's takeoff does not measure — labour, removal, hire, fees, anything else — each named for what it is.

  • What sits outside the range

    Quantities above or below the computed range, by how much, in the quote's unit or converted and shown.

  • What to ask

    One list of questions, in the quote's order, ready to copy and send. Questions, never a verdict.

Paste the quote above, or add its lines one at a time. The reading appears here as each line is read.

Outside what this takeoff measures

11

Nothing in the reading measures these. Whether the quote covers each is worth asking in its own right: a scope missing from a quote tends to become a cost after work has started. Why each is left out is on the takeoff.

  • The fire strategy
  • The structural fixing of the battens or rails
  • Repairs to the wall behind once old cladding or siding comes off in the strip out
  • The timber's species, grade and treatment, and any fire-retardant treatment a board may need; the rows count boards of the width given
  • Moving a gas or electricity meter or its box, which only the supplier or the network operator does, and the flue's design and certification, which is the registered gas engineer's
  • Whether the new facing needs planning permission, and the consent a conservation area or a listed building needs; in North America, a historic district's approval
  • Insulating the wall to a target
  • Replacing the roofline, and the carpentry that brings the eaves or a verge out
  • The windows and doors themselves, and the sills under them; the trims and closers round them are counted
  • A line of its own for the cover battens over board-on-board cladding
  • The starter strip, J-channel and corner posts that plastic siding hangs from

The reference

Every line the reading looks for

For Length of wall clad, walls end to end 52 ft · Height clad 17 ft · Windows 6 · Window opening width, each 4 ft · Window opening height, each 4 ft · Doors 1 · Outside corners 2 · Cavity barrier lines across the gap 1Length of wall clad, walls end to end 16 m · Height clad 5.2 m · Windows 6 · Window opening width, each 1.2 m · Window opening height, each 1.2 m · Doors 1 · Outside corners 2 · Cavity barrier lines across the gap 1. Each is the calculator linked under it, run with those measurements; a range is that calculator at both ends of one choice, not a margin for error.

How the ranges are taken

Where the choice is cutting waste, the ends are the site’s own allowances: 5%, the tight buffer of a crew with a planned set-out, and 15%, the wider one a first-timer orders. Where the calculator decides between patterns or materials, the ends are the options it offers. Where it adds nothing for loss, the range runs from the net quantity to 15% over it.

A minimum — the fewest hangers a spacing allows, the least airflow a room needs — has no upper end. A single figure carries an allowance the material itself needs, such as a lap, and names it.

What a reading like this cannot see

  • It does not know your prices, your market, or what the work ought to cost.
  • It does not know the building — the access, the condition of what is there, or what has to happen first.
  • It cannot check a lump sum, because there is no quantity in one.
  • A line it reads as missing may be priced under another name. A quantity outside the range is not evidence of anything. Each is a reason to ask a question.
  • Two quotes are not comparable until their scopes are.
  • It is not advice, and it is no substitute for a second quote.

The full takeoff

Every quantity for this job, with its working

The Rainscreen cladding on battens takeoff runs the same calculators on the same measurements and shows what sits under each line here.

Open the takeoffEvery quote check

  • Base, allowance, order

    Each line's quantity before and after its allowance, and what to buy.

  • Every allowance editable

    Change a waste figure and the order follows, with its source named.

  • Into a project

    Add the whole job to a workspace with your own prices.

Frequently asked questions

What quantities does a rainscreen cladding job need?
It depends on the measurements, so this page asks for yours. At the size it opens on — Length of wall clad, walls end to end 16 m · Height clad 5.2 m · Windows 6 · Window opening width, each 1.2 m · Window opening height, each 1.2 m · Doors 1 · Outside corners 2 · Cavity barrier lines across the gap 1 — the lines come to: Breather membrane (house wrap, weather or water resistive barrier), 1 roll; Battens and counter-battens, 437–503 m; Cavity barriers or blocking across the ventilated gap, 16.8–18.4 m; Corner and opening trims, 15–18 sheets; Vented closers (vent closures) with insect mesh, 16–19 sheets; Cladding boards, board on board (timber, fibre cement or composite), 92–106 boards; Mastic (caulk) at the frames, 1.26–1.45 L; Stain, oil or paint on the boards, 20.8–23.9 L; Skip (dumpster) for offcuts, 1.66 m³. In imperial units — Length of wall clad, walls end to end 52 ft · Height clad 17 ft · Windows 6 · Window opening width, each 4 ft · Window opening height, each 4 ft · Doors 1 · Outside corners 2 · Cavity barrier lines across the gap 1 — they come to: Breather membrane (house wrap, weather or water resistive barrier), 1 roll; Furring strips (battens), upright, 680–782 ft; Cavity barriers or blocking across the ventilated gap, 54.6–59.8 ft; Corner and opening trims, 15–18 sheets; Vented closers (vent closures, vent strips) with insect mesh, 16–19 sheets; Lap siding or cladding boards (wood, fibre cement or composite), in squares, 8.11–8.88 squares; Mastic (caulk) at the frames, 0.38–0.43 gal; Stain, oil or paint on the boards, 5.5–6.33 gallons; Skip (dumpster) for offcuts, 2.15 yd³.
Which line on a rainscreen cladding quote varies the most?
The Corner and opening trims: 15–18 sheets for a job measured Length of wall clad, walls end to end 16 m · Height clad 5.2 m · Windows 6 · Window opening width, each 1.2 m · Window opening height, each 1.2 m · Doors 1 · Outside corners 2 · Cavity barrier lines across the gap 1, depending on how much is allowed for loss over the net figure, up to 15%.
What does a rainscreen cladding quote often leave out?
The reading names every line of the job that nothing on the quote reads as — any of the 9 lines the takeoff measures. The takeoff also lists 11 things it does not measure, shown under the reading, and each is worth asking about: a scope missing from a quote tends to become a cost after work has started.
Can I paste the quote exactly as it came?
Yes — from an email, a PDF or a spreadsheet, one item to a line. Amounts of money are taken out before anything is read, headings and totals are skipped, and each line is shown with what it was read as, so a misreading is one correction. Quantities in the other unit system are converted and the conversion is shown; a count of boxes is never compared with a count of tiles.
Does this check the price as well?
No. It reads quantities, never prices, and this site publishes none: an installed price moves with the market, the season, the access and the specification, so a figure for what the work ought to cost would give you confidence in a number nobody can defend. A quantity against your own measurements is checkable, and every figure here links to the calculator that produced it.