AI estimating for drylining contractors
Drylining lives and dies on the rate per square metre — and on noticing when the job on site stops matching the job you priced. Nexley builds your rates up from first principles, turns partition layouts into board and stud schedules, and prices the variation the day the architect moves a wall, so the money follows the drawings instead of leaking between revisions.
- Rate build-ups you can defend line by line
- Board schedules straight off the layouts
- Variations priced while they are still fresh
A rate is an argument — build it so it wins
When a main contractor's surveyor challenges your metre rate, a number scribbled from memory folds. A build-up holds. Nexley assembles each partition type from its parts — metal stud at the specified centres, track top and bottom, the board layers each side, insulation, fixings, tape and joint to the finish level the specification calls for — with your labour constants against every operation. Fire-rated board and acoustic variations become their own types with their own rates, not a hopeful percentage scribbled onto the standard one. The result reads like the workings of a careful estimator, because that is what it is.
From layout drawing to loading-out list
| You provide | Nexley returns |
|---|---|
| Partition layout drawings with type references | Measured areas per type, per floor — the take-off, referenced to each drawing |
| The partition and lining specification | Rate build-ups per type: stud, track, board layers, insulation, tape and joint |
| Your wastage and labour figures | Board, stud and screw schedules ready for merchants to price — the loading-out list per floor |
| A revised layout mid-job | The re-measure, the priced difference, and a drafted variation notice for your approval |
The measurement engine behind this is the same take-off and bill of quantities capability used across trades — pointed here at SFS, partitions, wall linings and ceilings, where the quantities are large, the repetition is high, and a small per-metre error compounds across an entire floor plate.
The variation is where drylining margin goes to die
Every dryliner knows the pattern. Revision C moves three partitions, the site agent says "just crack on", and the paperwork happens at final account — where memory is short and goodwill shorter. Because Nexley holds the measured baseline it priced from, a changed drawing is a re-measure, not an argument: what changed, what it costs at contract rates, drafted as a variation the day it lands via automated quoting. Fire-rated work sharpens the point — a corridor upgraded from one board layer to two is a real cost you either capture that week or donate to the main contractor at the end of the job.
Get a layout measured this weekTry Nexley on your next drylining package
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“Does what it says really. Compared to what I'd have to pay someone to do everything they're looking after, it's worth it.”
