Field notes
Electrical takeoff and estimating, written down.
Practical guides to counting, measuring, and pricing electrical work from PDF plans — plus why we built TakeOn the way we did. Written by the people building it. Subscribe via RSS.
-
6 min readConduit homeruns on a PDF plan: measure them without tracing
To measure conduit homeruns in TakeOn, mark panels as Landmarks and pick Route to… on a run. It routes to the panel around keep-out zones and totals the length.
Read post -
6 min readHow to count symbols on a PDF plan automatically
To count symbols on a PDF plan automatically, box one example and let image matching find the rest. TakeOn's Find Similar proposes matches; you accept them.
Read post -
7 min readMarkup vs margin in an electrical bid: formulas and a table
Markup is profit as a percent of cost; margin is profit as a percent of the sell price. A 20% markup gives a 16.7% margin, and a 20% margin takes a 25% markup.
Read post -
4 min readHow to connect Claude to your electrical takeoff with MCP
TakeOn has an MCP connector: add it to Claude or any MCP client, approve the workspaces it can read, and ask about your takeoff, bid, specs and sheets.
Read post -
6 min readPanel schedule to takeoff: turn PDF schedules into counts
To turn a panel or luminaire schedule on a PDF into a takeoff, capture the table as data, map its columns to a count template, and review the counts it creates.
Read post -
6 min readWhat is an electrical takeoff? Definition, steps, errors
An electrical takeoff is the count and measurement of every electrical item on a drawing set, producing the quantities an estimator prices to build a bid.
Read post -
5 min readFrom PDF to BOM in 15 minutes: a takeoff walkthrough
To turn a PDF electrical plan into a bill of materials in TakeOn: check the scale, define count and linear templates, click and measure, export grouped totals.
Read post -
6 min readTemplate properties: how a contractor saved 40% of estimating time
TakeOn template properties are custom fields on a takeoff item — type, voltage, circuit — with value lists and conditional fields. The takeoff groups by them.
Read post -
5 min readWhy we built a web-based takeoff tool when Bluebeam already exists
TakeOn is browser-based electrical takeoff software, built because Bluebeam, PlanSwift and On-Screen Takeoff are Windows-only and hand counts to a spreadsheet.
Read post