Waste and material costs

Two settings on every component decide how a raw measurement becomes the number you actually order: waste and material price/pack sizing. For foundations, volume pricing dominates and supplier rounding rules matter.

Waste

Foundation waste is mostly about over-dig, spillage, and offcuts on reinforcement.

• Concrete: 5% percentage, or a fixed half-cubic-metre buffer per pour. Suppliers round to 0.25 or 0.5 m³ increments anyway, so a fixed extra often makes more sense
• Excavation: Usually no waste setting — you're moving what you dig
• Mesh and rebar: 5–10% percentage to cover offcuts and laps
• Formwork: 10% percentage for cuts and re-use losses
• DPM and membrane: 5–10% percentage for laps and tape sealing
• Piers, pads, fittings: None — count what's installed

Material price and pack sizing

Two strategies depending on how you buy:

Per unit. Concrete per m³, rebar per m or per kg, piers per item. Simple and exact for most foundation materials.

Per pack. Mesh comes in fixed sheet sizes (typically 2.4 × 4.8 m). DPM comes in rolls of fixed width and length. Rebar comes in fixed-length bars (typically 12 m). Set the pack size and unit price, and QuoteCore+ rounds the order up to whole sheets, rolls, or bars.

For concrete, set the supplier's rounding increment (commonly 0.25 m³) so the order matches what the truck actually delivers.

Pitch multiplier

Not applicable for foundation work. Foundations are measured flat from plan view. Leave it off.

A worked example

10 m × 8 m slab, 150 mm thick. Plan area: 80 m². Volume: 80 × 0.15 = 12 m³. Waste at 5%: 12.6 m³. Supplier rounding to 0.25 m³: order 12.75 m³. Mesh: 80 m² + 10% laps = 88 m² → 8 sheets of 2.4×4.8 m (~92 m²). DPM: 80 m² + 10% = 88 m² → 1 roll of 25×4 m (100 m²).

That's what the customer is charged for material on the quote, and what your supplier sees on the order list.

Related

• Components overview
• Plan vs Actual