Calculating Flooring in Kitchen Using Material List

[Frustrated]

Will CA's material list correctly calculate the linear feet of hard wood flooring required in a kitchen? It appears that CA assumes hardwoods will be installed under cabinet bases, islands, and appliances. Also, it appears that the floor sqft of the room is being doubled+. When I hand calculate the sqft footage of the entire room I get 184 sqft. When I calculate the area of hard wood, taking into account the island, cabinet bases, and appliances, I get 120 sqft. When I convert the length of 4" wide hard wood flooring CA calcultes for the room it is 372 sqft (2.02 x 184). Is there something I'm doing wrong here or is this just another material list bug?

[ambrozac]

On the 1x4, you need to take into account that 3 Lft = 1 bd ft., or in this case, will cover 1 sq ft. If you have 360 Lft 1x4, it would cover 120 sq ft, providing it is exactly 4" wide and set up that way when defining the Material. I believe the program does figure the material underneath the cabinets.

[Frustrated]

CA calculates the linear feet of 4" flooring to be 1,117 linear feet, which equates to 372 sqft.

[ambrozac]

Did you check your Material definition? Sounds like the "Strip/Height" may be set for 2" instead of 4". I just tested and mine comes out correctly, except that it doesn't deduct for cabinets, etc., as you had earlier mentioned.

[lbuttery]

deduct for cabinets

Chief doesn't do take-offs but there is software that does.

Check out Scale master and Winscale.
I haven't used them but they are in my collection of interesting items.

Lew

[Frustrated]

Checked the height as suggested and it is set at 4". So I'm really puzzled as to why it is calculating twice the amount of flooring required a room approximately 11 ft x 17 ft.

Thanks for your help.

[ambrozac]

This is what I come up with for a 11" x 17" area. A real small thumbnail to the right, which shows the amount of Lft calculated......Maybe you have an overlap amt., or do you have the Material specified for the main flooring and possibly an underlayment ?

[Frustrated]

I've tested it on a new plan and the calculations work correctly. I've checked other rooms in the original plan and they are acting the same way as the kitchen (~2x the flooring). Any ideas? Is there something fundamentally wrong with this particular plan?

[ambrozac]

I had edited the post above, probably while you were posting yours. The only thing I can think of, is that maybe one of the underlayments, or subfloor, has the same material assignment.

[Frustrated]

I've checked the three floor underlayments and they are define as no material. I've checked every item in the materials dialog, but none are set to the 4" wood floor material. I've gone as far as recreating the pier and beam foundation in a test plan, but the test plan calculates correctly. I'm stumped.

[Frustrated]

To make things even more puzzling, the ceiling covering is caclulating the area correctly in my original plan.

[ambrozac]

If you would like, I would be happy to look at for you. I have to leave for now, but will be back in the morning.

[Frustrated]

If you don't mind. Let me know where to send the plan.

Thanks