Am I the only one who thinks tablet takeoff is slower than paper for small reno jobs?
Was doing a 1,400 sq ft bathroom and kitchen reno in Aurora last Tuesday. Pulled up the plans on my iPad to do takeoff. Spent 40 minutes zooming and panning while my guy with a scale ruler and a printed set was done in 15. I ended up printing them at the FedEx on Galena anyway and beat the tablet by a mile. Maybe I just don't know the software well enough. But for a quick job, paper still wins for me. So is it me being old school or does the tablet really only pay off on big jobs? What do you all use for under 2,000 sq ft?
The "zooming and panning" part is what kills it. I do smaller renos too and ran into the same thing on a 900 sq ft basement job last month. What helped me was setting up a template ahead of time with the scale locked in and the layers I need already on, so I'm not hunting through menus mid job. Still, if I'm just measuring a few walls and counting outlets, I grab the printed set every time. For a bathroom and kitchen combo like yours, paper is honestly faster because you can mark it up with a pencil as you go. The tablet starts to make sense when there's enough stuff to count that the auto tools save you real time. Do you ever pre print a backup set just in case the software fights you?