Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

Quote check

Check a water and sewer connection 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
  • 9Measurements
  • QuestionsNever a verdict

How the quote is read

Each line of a water and sewer connection quote is matched to the line of the job it names, or marked as something the New-build service connections (water and sewer) 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 9 measurements — water service run, main to house, water trench depth, sewer lateral run, house to connection, sewer trench depth, average, trench width, bedding under the pipe, surround over the pipe, water pipe outside diameter, sewer pipe outside diameter — run through the same calculators as the takeoff, so the two give the same figure for the same job.

Reading a water and sewer connection quote

Service connections are quoted by the metre (foot) of trench, and depth moves the price most: a sewer lateral deeper at one end for its fall costs more to dig and to support than its length suggests.

Connecting to the public main and sewer is often charged by the supplier or the authority directly, outside a contractor's price; ask which charges a quote carries.

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 water and sewer connection 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

Water and sewer connection · Water service run, main to house 49 ft · Water trench depth 3 ft · Sewer lateral run, house to connection 49 ft · Sewer trench depth, average 4 ft · Trench width 18 in · Bedding under the pipe 4 in · Surround over the pipe 4 in · Water pipe outside diameter 1.25 in · Sewer pipe outside diameter 4.25 inWater service run, main to house 15 m · Water trench depth 0.9 m · Sewer lateral run, house to connection 15 m · Sewer trench depth, average 1.2 m · Trench width 450 mm · Bedding under the pipe 100 mm · Surround over the pipe 100 mm · Water pipe outside diameter 32 mm · Sewer pipe outside diameter 110 mm

  • 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 sizes
  • The separation the two services must keep from each other, and from other buried services, which the local rules set
  • The connections themselves
  • Work in the road or on land that is not the plot, which needs the highway authority's or the owner's consent
  • The surface over the trenches once they are backfilled
  • The sewer's least fall, which the drain slope page gives for the pipe's size over this length; the depths at each end must allow it

The reference

Every line the reading looks for

For Water service run, main to house 49 ft · Water trench depth 3 ft · Sewer lateral run, house to connection 49 ft · Sewer trench depth, average 4 ft · Trench width 18 in · Bedding under the pipe 4 in · Surround over the pipe 4 in · Water pipe outside diameter 1.25 in · Sewer pipe outside diameter 4.25 inWater service run, main to house 15 m · Water trench depth 0.9 m · Sewer lateral run, house to connection 15 m · Sewer trench depth, average 1.2 m · Trench width 450 mm · Bedding under the pipe 100 mm · Surround over the pipe 100 mm · Water pipe outside diameter 32 mm · Sewer pipe outside diameter 110 mm. 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 New-build service connections (water and sewer) 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 water and sewer connection job need?
It depends on the measurements, so this page asks for yours. At the size it opens on — Water service run, main to house 15 m · Water trench depth 0.9 m · Sewer lateral run, house to connection 15 m · Sewer trench depth, average 1.2 m · Trench width 450 mm · Bedding under the pipe 100 mm · Surround over the pipe 100 mm · Water pipe outside diameter 32 mm · Sewer pipe outside diameter 110 mm — the lines come to: Water service trench: dig, bedding and backfill, 5.19 m³ (loose); Sewer lateral trench: dig, bedding and backfill, 6.91 m³ (loose); Water service pipe, 16.5–19 m; Sewer lateral pipe, 16.8–19.3 m. In imperial units — Water service run, main to house 49 ft · Water trench depth 3 ft · Sewer lateral run, house to connection 49 ft · Sewer trench depth, average 4 ft · Trench width 18 in · Bedding under the pipe 4 in · Surround over the pipe 4 in · Water pipe outside diameter 1.25 in · Sewer pipe outside diameter 4.25 in — they come to: Water service trench: dig, bedding and backfill, 6.98 yd³; Sewer lateral trench: dig, bedding and backfill, 9.33 yd³; Water service pipe, 54–62.1 ft; Sewer lateral pipe, 55–63.2 ft.
Which line on a water and sewer connection quote varies the most?
The Water service pipe: 16.5–19 m for a job measured Water service run, main to house 15 m · Water trench depth 0.9 m · Sewer lateral run, house to connection 15 m · Sewer trench depth, average 1.2 m · Trench width 450 mm · Bedding under the pipe 100 mm · Surround over the pipe 100 mm · Water pipe outside diameter 32 mm · Sewer pipe outside diameter 110 mm, depending on how much is allowed for loss over the net figure, up to 15%.
What does a water and sewer connection 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.