CFE guide · Estimating
Price Travel, Drive Time and Hotel for Out-of-Town Jobs
Calculator › Travel & Subsistence works out what an out-of-town job costs to get to. It takes the job’s man days, builds a crew plan (drivers and riders per day), pays drive time and mileage only past your shop’s free zone, and compares driving every day with a hotel stay plus per diem. On the police substation sample, driving every day costs $15,291.50 and staying at a hotel $5,994.44, a $9,297.06 saving. Carry the result into Travel / Zone Pay and Subsistence Pay on the estimate.
Why travel needs a calculator
An out-of-town job pays the crew to sit in a truck. Drive time is wages, mileage is a reimbursement, and every day of it repeats for the length of the job. Estimators often add a round number for “travel” and find out on the job that it was a fraction of what the crew got paid.
CFE - Advanced Estimating Worksheet works it out from the same man days as the bid. It knows how many days the crew is on the job, how many people ride in each truck, how far past the free zone they drive, and what a hotel would cost instead. The calculator is not part of the estimate; it gives you the number to put on it.
The four steps
- Build the crew planFrom Project Man Days: days, drivers, riders.
- Describe the tripMinutes, miles, free zone, wage, vehicle.
- Price the hotelNights, rooms, tax, parking, per diem.
- Put it on the estimateAdditional / Misc: Travel / Zone Pay and Subsistence Pay.
1Build the crew plan from the man days
Open Calculator › Travel & Subsistence with the estimate open. Project Man Days comes from the estimate’s man days sheet. Set Drivers per day and Riders per day, and CFE works out the Days on the job: 62.39 man days with 4 installers is 16 days. The day-by-day table lets you change any day, add days, and shows how many installer-days are scheduled against the man days (63.00 for 62.39 here).
2Describe the trip and how you pay it
Fill in the yellow cells under The Trip: drive minutes and miles one way (from Google or Bing maps), the Shop travel zone that is not paid (45 miles by default), the installer’s loaded hourly wage, hours per day, the vehicle and its reimbursement per mile, where the day starts, round trip or one way, whether it is a prevailing wage job (Yes turns on quarter-hour rounding) and how drive time is paid. Travel Pay then shows paid miles past the zone, paid drive time, what a driver and a passenger cost per day, and the crew’s travel for the whole job.
Check your union or company rule on where the day starts. Starting at home with a free zone, as in the sample, pays only the miles past 45; starting at the shop pays from the shop door.
3Price a hotel stay instead
Under Hotel Stay, set Stay at a hotel to Yes, the nights, the nightly rate per room before tax, the lodging tax, the room type and how many people share a room, parking and the meals per diem. Hotel Cost works out room nights, rooms, tax, parking and meals, the cost per person per night, one trip out and back, and the bottom line: Staying at a hotel, whole job next to Driving every day, whole job, and what the hotel saves.
4Put the result on the estimate
The calculator does not change the estimate. Carry its numbers into the Additional / Misc box: travel into Travel / Zone Pay and hotel and meals into Subsistence Pay, as Value × $ Amount with a GP %. Save as my defaults keeps your free zone, wage, mileage and per diem for the next job, and the calculator prints or saves as a PDF for the job file. See subcontractors and additional costs.
Worked example: the police substation, 130 miles out
Willow Creek Police Substation: 1 driver and 3 riders, 16 days, 150 minutes and 130 miles each way, a 45-mile free zone, $65.00 loaded wage, $0.70 a mile, personal car.
| Item | How it is worked out | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Paid miles, round trip | (130 − 45) × 2 | 170 miles |
| Paid drive time | 170 miles × 1.15 minutes a mile = 196.15 minutes | 3.27 hours |
| Passenger, per day | 196.15 minutes at $65.00 an hour (drive time only) | $212.50 |
| Driver, per day | $212.50 + 170 × $0.70 mileage | $331.50 |
| Crew travel, whole job | 16 driver-days × $331.50 + 47 rider-days × $212.50 | $15,291.50 |
| Hotel stay | 8 room nights at $139 + 12% tax + 63 person-days × $60 meals | $5,025.44 |
| Staying at a hotel, whole job | Hotel stay + one trip out and back ($969.00) | $5,994.44 |
| The hotel saves | $15,291.50 − $5,994.44 | $9,297.06 |
1.15 minutes a mile is the trip’s own pace: 150 minutes for 130 miles. On this job a hotel is the cheaper choice by more than $9,000, a number worth knowing before you price the travel line.
What to do next
Next, add the travel to the estimate’s additional costs, check your labor rates, and confirm the man days the plan is built on.
Price your next out-of-town job
The Travel and Subsistence calculator is in the 30-day free trial. No credit card.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does CFE calculate travel pay for installers?
It pays drive time at the installer’s loaded wage and mileage to the driver, only for miles past your shop’s free zone, for every driver and rider on every day of the crew plan.
Where do the days on the job come from?
From the estimate’s Project Man Days divided by the installers per day: 62.39 man days with 4 installers is 16 days. You can change any day in the crew plan.
Does the travel calculator change my estimate?
No. It is a calculator; carry its result into Travel / Zone Pay and Subsistence Pay in the Additional / Misc box of the estimate.
Can CFE compare driving every day with a hotel stay?
Yes. Hotel Cost shows the whole job staying at a hotel next to driving every day, and what the hotel saves.
Written by
Cristian Valcu – Founder & CEO, Commercial Flooring Estimating LLC
Cristian has estimated commercial flooring for over 20 years and built CFE - Advanced Estimating Worksheet around the way flooring contractors actually price, propose and track their bids.
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