Why is RSMeans wrong for my city?
National books lag the shelf.
A national cost book publishes a national average and a city adjustment factor, which is a defensible number for a budget and a bad number to sign a contract against.
What the multiplier actually does
The book takes a national line, then multiplies it by a location factor for your metro, built from a broad basket of construction inputs over a long window. It is doing an honest job of describing a region on average.
Your bid is not an average. It is one job, in one quarter, out of two or three yards you actually buy from. Lumber can move double digits between the time a book is compiled and the day you pull the order, and the location factor does not know that happened.
Where the gap shows up
The gap is usually widest on the volatile commodity lines: dimensional lumber, sheet goods, copper, and anything that moved on a tariff or a mill outage. It is narrowest on fittings, fasteners, and small hardware, which is why a book can look fine on a small scope and leave you underwater on a framing package.
Labor is its own problem. A book carries a composite crew rate; you carry your crew, your burden, and your overtime. That number belongs on your own rate card.
How to use a book without bidding off it
Use the book for the scope you rarely do, for a conceptual budget before a plan set exists, and as a sanity check when a number surprises you. Do not use it for the twenty lines carrying most of the cost on a job you bid every week.
For those lines you want two things on the page: a figure with a date attached, and a confirmation from the yard before you commit. Portravo gives you the first. Your supplier gives you the second, and you should still get it in writing.
Before you reuse a book number
Run a book line through this before it goes in a bid.
- 01Find the publication or data date on the line. If you cannot find one, do not use it.
- 02Ask whether this line is commodity-driven. Lumber, sheet goods, copper and steel need a current figure.
- 03Replace the composite crew rate with your own loaded hourly rate for the role doing the work.
- 04Check whether the city factor covers your metro or the nearest big metro. Sacramento is not the Bay Area.
- 05For the five highest-dollar lines, get a written supplier quote before the bid goes out.
No account, no card. Send your last supplier quote as a PDF and it comes back marked against the Portravo Sacramento benchmark within one business day.
Send a supplier quote for a free audit- Is RSMeans useless for a small contractor?
- No. It is useful for conceptual budgets, for scopes you rarely self-perform, and as a cross-check on a number that looks wrong. It is a poor basis for high-dollar commodity lines, which move faster than the book is compiled.
- What should I use instead of a national book for materials?
- A figure with a date on it for your metro, confirmed against a supplier quote before you commit. Portravo prices confirmed quantities against its Sacramento benchmark and prints the source and the as-of date on the line so you can see how current it is.