Cost estimates

Costing information could be important when choosing components, outlining a budget, or understanding current prices for services or parts. Here are a few sources of costing information:

Product literature (i.e. supplier catalogues)

• Product literature, such as supplier or manufacturer catalogues, can provide costs for components, parts or entire systems.
  
  

Construction cost data (Canada & US)

• How to estimate with RSMeans data (2012) is a step-by-step guide to creating a complete construction estimate.

• RSMeans Estimating Handbook (2009) provides technical data required to estimate costs for major construction projects, including sizing, productivity, equipment requirements, code-mandated specifications, design standards, and engineering factors. 

      Tip: You can adjust for inflation in order to get costs for current year.

• RSMeans (in print in the Webster library) provide construction cost data as well as city cost indexes, productivity rates, crew composition, and contractor's overhead and profit rates. There are series of books depending on the construction project:
  • Asseemblies costs with RSMeans data (updated annually)
  • Building construction costs with RSMeans data (updated annually)
  • Electrical costs with RSMeans data (updated annually)
  • Facilities maintenance & repair costs with RSMeans data
    
  • Green building costs with RSMeans data
  • Heavy construction cost data
  • Labor rates for the construction industry (updated annually)
  • Mechanical costs with RSMeans data (updated annually)
  • Residential cost data
  • Square Foot Costs with Rsmeans Data

• Hanscomb's Yardsticks for Costing (in print in the Webster library) that contains cost data for the Canadian construction industry. Details constructions costs for eight major regions in Canada and includes market unit costs, composite unit rates, and gross building costs

Labour Costs

• Job Vacancy and Wage Survey: Satistics Canada data on average wages across industries, occupations, types of work, and regions of Canada.
• Canadian Industry Statistics: Salaries and Wages are available for various manufacturing sectors.
• Québec survey on total compensation: The Institut de la statistique du Québec conducts the Québec survey on total compensation (ERG) annually (in French only). The PDF report gives costs divided by sector (public, private, unionized, etc.). Table A gives global costs across all sectors.
• U.S. National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates: Wages for major occupational groups (from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Newspaper, Magazine or Trade journal articles

• Newspaper or magazine articles can be great sources of costing information. Journalists often uncover construction or service costs paid by government. Trade journals can also be a good location to find suppliers or manufacturers in an industry. Once identified, these suppliers' websites may allow you to find costing information. Note: If searching Google or news databases to find costing information in Québec, you may need to use French keywords. 
  
• Engineering News Record Magazine: publishes biweekly construction cost data from the United States. Follow these steps to find the most recent data:
  1. Go to Business Source Complete
  2. In the first search box, enter "ENR: Engineering News-Record", and then select the "SO Publication Name" from the drop-down menu
  3. In the second search box, enter "construction economics", and then select the "TI Title" from the drop-down menu