# Calculating drywall with least waste



## quantumflux (Jan 4, 2015)

All,

While putting together a take-off to order drywall, how is everyone estimating drywall sheets? Not talking about guesstimating for bidding purposes.

I've been manually measuring all walls and making a floor plan (I never just do drywall and it helps with accurate bidding for various other things), but, I would hope that there is software out there that can break down how many 54" 12 ft boards, 4x10, 4x16, etc you need based on you inputting the length/height of all walls or something. Failing that, what manual methods are people using other than measuring every wall and manually figuring out how many of the various size sheets to get, in order to get the least amount of drywall waste on a job (without making a giant jigsaw puzzle)?


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## griz (Nov 26, 2009)

Board crew comes in, counts studs, makes a few notes and in 15-20 minutes has a board count.

Now, this obviously won't work for a large commercial job, but I've seen some pretty good sized ones done this way.

Board count was always pretty accurate also.


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## FrankSmith (Feb 21, 2013)

quantumflux said:


> All,
> 
> While putting together a take-off to order drywall, how is everyone estimating drywall sheets? Not talking about guesstimating for bidding purposes.
> 
> I've been manually measuring all walls and making a floor plan (I never just do drywall and it helps with accurate bidding for various other things), but, I would hope that there is software out there that can break down how many 54" 12 ft boards, 4x10, 4x16, etc you need based on you inputting the length/height of all walls or something. Failing that, what manual methods are people using other than measuring every wall and manually figuring out how many of the various size sheets to get, in order to get the least amount of drywall waste on a job (without making a giant jigsaw puzzle)?


If you approach it like that, the hard part isn't the count but getting the crew to put the pieces where you had in mind.


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## Walraven (Jan 24, 2014)

Used to work with a fixer who calculated the sq ft and would get the equivalant in 19ft sheets worked well for him.All cut on site offcuts in cupboards etc


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## Walraven (Jan 24, 2014)

Also when I'm ordering sheets it's to minimise joins not waste.


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

What ever you save in waste you will spend threefold in labor.


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## illbuildit.dd (Jan 7, 2015)

FrankSmith said:


> If you approach it like that, the hard part isn't the count but getting the crew to put the pieces where you had in mind.


I use to measure then order and the crew always put them exactly where I figured. Then again, what we had in common is that we were professionals. Anyone who doesn't use the biggest piece wherever possible with the least amount of joints isn't a professional at all.


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## TimelessQuality (Sep 23, 2007)

Board is cheap... Labor.. Not so much


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

quantumflux said:


> but, I would hope that there is software out there that can break down how many 54" 12 ft boards, 4x10, 4x16, etc you need based on you inputting the length/height of all walls or something.


This was a project in a software class that I ended up dropping. IIRC, the program was for cutting lumber. 

This program (that I never finished) would search through the thousands of combinations to find at least one optimum solution.
Once it finds the solution it has to tell you where each piece goes.

If there is a college nearby some Computer Science senior can probably code and debug this in a few hours.
This could be 2000 lines of code if written in Pascal but there may be programming languages out there that have built in functions that do this kind of thing. 
It certainly has practical applications in the commercial world.


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## FrankSmith (Feb 21, 2013)

illbuildit.dd said:


> I use to measure then order and the crew always put them exactly where I figured. Then again, what we had in common is that we were professionals. Anyone who doesn't use the biggest piece wherever possible with the least amount of joints isn't a professional at all.


Sounds like things worked out well for you back when you where a professional. Why aren't you still at it? 

I would love to talk to the crew your ordered for and see if they thought your take offs where as spot on as you remember.


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## blacktop (Oct 28, 2012)

FrankSmith said:


> Sounds like things worked out well for you back when you where a professional. Why aren't you still at it?
> 
> I would love to talk to the crew your ordered for and see if they thought your take offs where as spot on as you remember.


What he said made sense to me Frank .


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## blacktop (Oct 28, 2012)

TNTSERVICES said:


> What ever you save in waste you will spend threefold in labor.


And mud!! Yeah!!! Scrap in all you want !! When I use up 5 extra buckets .. Did they really save anything by cutting the count by 5 sheets ??


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## blacktop (Oct 28, 2012)

quantumflux said:


> All,
> 
> While putting together a take-off to order drywall, how is everyone estimating drywall sheets? Not talking about guesstimating for bidding purposes.
> 
> I've been manually measuring all walls and making a floor plan (I never just do drywall and it helps with accurate bidding for various other things), but, I would hope that there is software out there that can break down how many 54" 12 ft boards, 4x10, 4x16, etc you need based on you inputting the length/height of all walls or something. Failing that, what manual methods are people using other than measuring every wall and manually figuring out how many of the various size sheets to get, in order to get the least amount of drywall waste on a job (without making a giant jigsaw puzzle)?


Any good D/C can walk through without a tape measure and give you a count within a board or two. I can do It over the phone If it's a simple one . 


There's nothing worse or more time consuming than being short on rock .. The hangers spend more time running around trying to make the count work . THEN WORKING! It cost them money . There's no gold mine in this trade as there were! 


10% WASTE ! GET OVER IT! :laughing:


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## FrankSmith (Feb 21, 2013)

blacktop said:


> What he said made sense to me Frank .


I am not going to say he is all wrong however he lost me with "Then again, what we had in common is that we were professionals". 

It's funny that he was professional. If I where to talk about past success and why it worked out I would say "because I am professional. Perhaps that's trivial. 

It could have worked out great for them but I am leery. For one he is not doing it any longer. More importantly everyone doing take offs thinks they are the best. To find guys working behind them who agree is rare. 

Regardless if he would have responded differently I would have just liked the comment and said, good point.


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## blacktop (Oct 28, 2012)

FrankSmith said:


> I am not going to say he is all wrong however he lost me with "Then again, what we had in common is that we were professionals".
> 
> It's funny that he was professional. If I where to talk about past success and why it worked out I would say "because I am professional. Perhaps that's trivial.
> 
> ...


'' Anyone who doesn't use the biggest piece wherever possible with the least amount of joints isn't a professional at all.''

This comment made sense to me Frank ... I really didn't read into the post as deeply as you did.


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## RST (Mar 28, 2015)

we order 16' for ceilings and 12' for walls. Going to have some waste but, oh well. I saw a yt video of Myron ferguson counting board of four different sizes for one house. That wouldn't work for us, the hangers would walk off the job trying to figure out what goes where.


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## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

RST said:


> Myron ferguson counting board of four different sizes for one house.
> 
> That wouldn't work for us, the hangers would walk off the job trying to figure out what goes where.


Did he justify his method, financially or otherwise?

A program could minimize joint length as a first priority but it would have to output exactly how the workers would do this, probably in the form of a list or a diagram. It's like a jigsaw puzzle.

Does it make any difference if there are many identical houses to be done?


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## blacktop (Oct 28, 2012)

RST said:


> we order 16' for ceilings and 12' for walls. Going to have some waste but, oh well. I saw a yt video of Myron ferguson counting board of four different sizes for one house. That wouldn't work for us, the hangers would walk off the job trying to figure out what goes where.


A good hanger knows what goes where. And a good drywall supplier knows how to stage it!


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## RST (Mar 28, 2015)

blacktop said:


> A good hanger knows what goes where. And a good drywall supplier knows how to stage it!


You are right! Exactly Right!

Our "hangers" around here leave something to be desired. We have on occasion ran the hangers off and done it ourselves. I would prefer not though. Drywall is not my forte.


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## Yianno (Dec 11, 2014)

What I find works well for me is by taking length x width x height of rooms. Helps me calculate area of ceiling + walls. I round to the nearest foot on every wall and ceiling. From there I make my list of what various lengths I need. Everything does get priced per 8' pieces. I seem to always be good on material budget but I would double check your local pricing.


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## icerock drywall (Aug 16, 2012)

I tell them it's like this...$7.00 a sheet or $13.00 a bucket of mud with labor...I never bid a job unless I know hangers are going to get the job.


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