The Segregated Cost Method allows you to give separate consideration to each of the major construction components of a building (foundation, floor structure, floor cover, etc.) with a minimum of time-consuming counting and measuring.
To use the Segregated Cost Method, you must do the following:
Determine the occupancy or occupancies of the building.
Determine the overall quality (cost rank) of the building. Segregated Estimator automatically applies this quality to all building components in the estimate (unless you set a specific quality for individual components).
Determine the class or classes of construction for the building.
Determine how to set the combined physical and functional depreciation for the building.
Specify the individual construction components that make up the building in a number of different construction systems (foundation, exterior walls, roof structure, roof cover, etc.). See the following page for an illustration of these construction systems.
The Segregated Cost Method, and thus Segregated Estimator, differs from the simpler Square Foot Method available in the Commercial Estimator (also part of SwiftEstimator) in the following major ways:
Segregated Estimator requires a greater degree of understanding of the overall cost relationships between occupancies, classes and quality levels than Commercial Estimator.
Segregated Estimator requires a greater degree of understanding of building construction techniques than Commercial Estimator. With Segregated Estimator, you have to enter every construction component in the building. If you leave a component out of the estimate, the calculated cost does not include that item.
Commercial Estimator begins with an average square foot cost for a typical building and refines this cost for such items as exterior walls and heating/cooling. If you do not specify the exterior walls for an estimate, Commercial Estimator automatically includes a typical exterior wall for the occupancy, class and quality of the building.