Query sheet in construction
The term ‘taking off’ refers to the process of identifying elements of construction works that can be measured and priced to produce bills of quantities. Analysis of drawings and specifications allows the cost consultant (usually a quantity surveyor) to prepare a taking off list, which lists all of the individual elements that comprise the works. These elements can then be measured in number, length, area, volume, weight or time and then collated and structured to produce an unpriced bill of quantities.
Taking off requires that the design is complete and a specification has been prepared. Where there may be uncertainty about specific elements of the design drawings and specifications, for example, there may be doubt about the nature, extent or dimensions of elements, these may be entered onto a query sheet and issued to the appropriate members of the consultant team for clarification.
Typically, a query sheet will show the quantity surveyor’s questions on one side and the consultant's answers on the other. These answers may include sketches and other information. Query sheets provide a formal record of questions that have been asked and answers given and should also record who asked each question, and when, and who answered each question, and when.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- Approximate bill of quantities.
- Approximate quantities cost plan.
- Bill of quantities.
- Common Arrangement of Work Sections (CAWS).
- Comparison of SMM7 with NRM2.
- Computers in tendering.
- Construction work packaging.
- Contract documents
- Cost plans.
- Elemental cost plan.
- New Rules of Measurement.
- Standard Method of Measurement (SMM7).
- Taking off.
- Tender.
- Tender documentation.
- Tender pricing document.
- Uniclass.
Featured articles and news
Great British Energy install solar on school and NHS sites
200 schools and 200 NHS sites to get solar systems, as first project of the newly formed government initiative.
600 million for 60,000 more skilled construction workers
Announced by Treasury ahead of the Spring Statement.
The restoration of the novelist’s birthplace in Eastwood.
Life Critical Fire Safety External Wall System LCFS EWS
Breaking down what is meant by this now often used term.
PAC report on the Remediation of Dangerous Cladding
Recommendations on workforce, transparency, support, insurance, funding, fraud and mismanagement.
New towns, expanded settlements and housing delivery
Modular inquiry asks if new towns and expanded settlements are an effective means of delivering housing.
Building Engineering Business Survey Q1 2025
Survey shows growth remains flat as skill shortages and volatile pricing persist.
Construction contract awards remain buoyant
Infrastructure up but residential struggles.
Home builders call for suspension of Building Safety Levy
HBF with over 100 home builders write to the Chancellor.
CIOB Apprentice of the Year 2024/2025
CIOB names James Monk a quantity surveyor from Cambridge as the winner.
Warm Homes Plan and existing energy bill support policies
Breaking down what existing policies are and what they do.
Treasury responds to sector submission on Warm Homes
Trade associations call on Government to make good on manifesto pledge for the upgrading of 5 million homes.
A tour through Robotic Installation Systems for Elevators, Innovation Labs, MetaCore and PORT tech.
A dynamic brand built for impact stitched into BSRIA’s building fabric.
BS 9991:2024 and the recently published CLC advisory note
Fire safety in the design, management and use of residential buildings. Code of practice.