Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

Quote check

Check a retaining wall 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.
  • 4Lines the job needs
  • 3Measurements
  • QuestionsNever a verdict

How the quote is read

Each line of a retaining wall quote is matched to the line of the job it names, or marked as something the Segmental retaining wall takeoff does not measure — labour, removal, hire, fees, or anything else.

The job’s own figures come from 3 measurements — wall length, retained height, buried depth — run through the same calculators as the takeoff, so the two give the same figure for the same job.

Reading a retaining wall quote

Retaining wall quotes list blocks by count or by face area, and grid by the number of layers rather than by the roll. A taller wall needs more blocks, more layers and more drainage stone, so quotes for walls of different heights do not compare line by line.

Worth asking where the drainage outlet goes: stone behind a wall does nothing without somewhere to discharge.

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 retaining wall 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

Retaining wall · Wall length 33 ft · Retained height 4 ft · Buried depth 6 inWall length 10 m · Retained height 1.2 m · Buried depth 0.15 m

  • 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

6

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 DESIGN. Anything retaining much over a metre, or holding back a slope, a surcharge or a structure, is engineered
  • Excavation and spoil removal, including the trench the levelling pad sits in
  • Drainage pipe, outlets, filter fabric and the surface water above the wall
  • Cap blocks, adhesive, pins and any facing
  • The geogrid as an order
  • Backfill behind the drainage zone, and the compaction plant the wall's own courses will tolerate

The reference

Every line the reading looks for

For Wall length 33 ft · Retained height 4 ft · Buried depth 6 inWall length 10 m · Retained height 1.2 m · Buried depth 0.15 m. 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 Segmental retaining wall 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 retaining wall job need?
It depends on the measurements, so this page asks for yours. At the size it opens on — Wall length 10 m · Retained height 1.2 m · Buried depth 0.15 m — the lines come to: Retaining Wall Block, 204–223 blocks; Gravel Base Layer Tonnage, 1.98–2.28 metric tons; Retaining Wall Drainage Gravel, 4.25–4.66 m³; Geogrid Reinforcement Layer Count, 3 layers. In imperial units — Wall length 33 ft · Retained height 4 ft · Buried depth 6 in — they come to: Retaining Wall Block, 208–228 blocks; Gravel Base Layer Tonnage, 2.23–2.57 tons; Retaining Wall Drainage Gravel, 5.65–6.19 cubic yards; Geogrid Reinforcement Layer Count, 3 layers.
Which line on a retaining wall quote varies the most?
The Gravel Base Layer Tonnage: 1.98–2.28 metric tons for a job measured Wall length 10 m · Retained height 1.2 m · Buried depth 0.15 m, depending on how much is allowed for loss over the net figure, up to 15%.
What does a retaining wall quote often leave out?
The reading names every line of the job that nothing on the quote reads as — any of the 4 lines the takeoff measures. The takeoff also lists 6 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.