Introduction to Estimating Scaffold Materials & Costs with Avontus Designer®
Hand-drawn scaffolding designs are incredibly time-intensive and difficult for clients and work crews to revise and understand. Scaffolding design and estimation software, like Avontus Designer® and Avontus Quantify®, improve design efficiency and accuracy with easy to manipulate 3D models.
Our software helps scaffolding designers reduce the amount of time it takes to design scaffolding structures and lower costs caused by inaccurate designs. You’ll even find that it’s easier to share your designs with your team and clients.
Below, check out our introduction to Avontus Designer and learn how to design scaffolding and generate material estimates.
What is Avontus Designer?
Our scaffolding design software, compatible with VR/AR, uses a drag and drop interface that gives users the ability to develop scaffolding layout designs and quickly generate a bill of materials for client proposals and scaffold erection.
Get our free scaffold design software here!
What scaffolding types does Avontus Designer support?
Avontus Designer supports six major types of scaffolding, including:
- Cup Type
- Ring Type
- Kwikstage
- Haki
- Octo
- Safway
How does Avontus Designer calculate materials?
The software is equipped with a customizable materials database, which includes parts numbers, dimensions and descriptions. You can even input your own materials. Designers and engineers can generate a Bill of Materials (BOM) for any designs and export to Quantify to generate a detailed materials cost estimate.
Each estimate provides accurate measurements and counts of scaffolding materials, including height, width, overall surface area and more.
How do you estimate scaffolding materials with Avontus Designer?
Before you start estimating materials, you’ll need to design a scaffolding structure. The example below shows you how to design your first scaffold and estimate the amount of materials needed for your design.
Step 1: Preparing the Scaffolding Drawing Environment
After downloading and installing Avontus Designer, get started by preparing your drawing environment.
1. Click on the desktop icon or application to launch Avontus Designer.
2. The application automatically launches with the option for you to create a new scaffolding drawing.
3. Select your preferred drawing units, either metric units or US units.
4. To finish configuring your drawing environment, select your scaffolding type.
Step 2: Drawing Scaffolding with Avontus Designer
Now that the drawing environment is configured, you’re ready to start designing. In the section below, you’ll learn how to add, edit, change and save scaffolding bays, as well as generate materials and cost estimates.
Step 2.1: Adding & Editing a Scaffolding Bay
1. To add a new scaffolding bay to your design, click and drag New Bay to your drawing page. Once you’ve added the bay to your drawing, you can view the object in 3D and edit bay level details.
2. With the Bay Level Editor at the bottom of the application, you can easily edit Bay Details, like the height and number of levels.
Step 2.2: Adding Additional Scaffolding Bays
In addition to adding bay levels, you can also add scaffolding bays to any side of your original design.
1. Click to select the original bay you created.
2. On the upper-left corner of the menu bar, select Add Bay from the Scaffold Tab to add a bay to any side.
Step 2.3: Changing Scaffolding Bay Dimensions
To customize your scaffold design, you can also easily change the dimensions of your scaffolding bays.
1. Select the scaffolding bay from your drawing.
2. Under the Scaffold tab, select the LR dropdown in the Bay Size/Elevation group and select your preferred size.
Step 2.4: Completing Basic Scaffolding
No scaffold is complete without ladder access and vertical braces, which is why Avontus Designer has built-in features that give you the power to do both.
1. Select the bay where you’d like to add the ladder and under the Scaffold tab, select Ladders.
2. To finish this sample scaffold, we’ll complete the model with supporting vertical braces. Under the Scaffold Tab select Side Settings and select the Top, Left and Bottom Face Braces.
Step 3: Creating a Bill of Materials
Now that you’ve designed your first set of scaffolding bays, by changing the dimensions and adding a ladder with braces, you’re ready to estimate the amount of materials needed to bring your design to life.
1. Under the Scaffold tab, select Bill of Materials to review the equipment list and scaffold units.
Step 3.1: Customizing the Bill of Materials
You’ll likely need to customize the BOM, based on the materials that you’re using for your project as well as the units. Avontus Designer gives you the ability to change the part number, material description and modify for all materials.
1. To make changes to the BOM, simply select the box where you’d like to make your changes and adjust the cell numbers until they meet your needs.
2. Aside from scaffolding materials, Avontus Designer also allows you to view the Scaffolding Units for the overall structure.
Step 3.2: Improving Stakeholder Workflow
Rather than exporting separate files for your stakeholders, Avontus Designer makes it easy to keep the design and material estimates together.
1. When you’re done customizing your materials, simply select Copy to Clipboard and select Close BOM to return to your drawing.
2. Right click anywhere on your drawing page and select Paste to add your Bill of Materials. You can resize and move the material estimates wherever you’d like on the page.
Congrats for making it through your first tutorial on how to design scaffolding with Avontus Designer and generate material estimates. To learn more about using Avontus Designer for your next installation project, contact us or read more about our scaffolding design software.
