A Minnesota Dream ProjectLakeside Cabin Cost Estimate

Imagine youve just inherited a lakeside lot in northern Minnesota (beautiful in the summer) that has an access road, electricity, water, and sewage disposal. Youve also inherited a modest sum with which to buy building materials. If youre having trouble imagining yourself being so lucky, suppose that a friend or neighbor has asked you for an estimate on how much it would cost to build a cabin and for help in designing and building. Engineers are often expected to know such things. How much would it cost for a modest, say, 24-foot-square, cabin? How long would it take you to build it?

The cabin cost estimate project is a favorite of students in my project management classes. We havent done much here with cost estimating (this is usually done in engineering economics courses), so Ill provide a little guidance. I suggest you take the following steps:

1. Guess. Take a wild guess at what it would cost for materials for a modest cabin.

2. Look up the square-foot costs for typical residential construction ($5070 per square foot) and adjust it down for a modest cabin. Many students use $30 per square foot for a modest cabin.

3. Use a unit cost approach:

1. Develop a floor plan.

2. Create a detailed list of materials with associated quantities.

3. Find the cost of the materials in a local building center brochure (or cost manual).

4. Use a spreadsheet to list and calculate the total cost of the materials.

4. Compare the three cost estimatesguess, cost per square foot, and unit cost.

Use the procedures outlined in this chapter to determine how long it would take you to build it; that is, develop a WBS and a schedule using the critical path method.