Countfire - Pros and cond

Excellent, the online support is fantastic, as is the software. There have been some containment drawings that I simply could not have lifted off with Pen and paper, but Countfire has made it possible and easy to review. If in doubt do the trial on a big job and see how you get on!

Pros

Whats not to like? Not much. Its a fantastic tool for estimators, the more you use it the faster you get and the more confidence you gain. Automatic counts - Brilliant Manual Counts - When you cant use automatic counts this is still super fast compared to pen and paper Measurements - Brilliant Splits and multiples - essential and very helpfull I have been using it for a year now and would recommend it to anyone involved in estimating or any other form of take offs.

Cons

Every now and again you get a bad drawing where all the symbols are slightly different and its a pain. Just use manual count and safe yourself a lot of frustration! The cost is pretty high (but worth it in time saved) If I was self employed it could be out of price range.

CountFire Automated Take-Off Software

I could not be more pleased with CounFire. It is fast, accurate, easy to use, and has cut my time to perform a take-off by a factor of 10. Some may question a factor of 10, but try it and see that drawing symbols when counted on one drawing are also counted on all other drawings within the project drawing package automatically. Orientation is not an issue, and items not picked up are easily identified and added to the correct symbol list. Check drawings are also supplied as part of the final report to assure all errors have been resolved.

Pros

CountFire being a cloud based service gets you up and running quickly. CountFire Sales is there to get you started and introduce you to Technical Assistance and Training. The On-Line Help function is integral to the CountFire Platform allowing you to be able to function seamlessly as you work on projects. I can count drawing elements or make extremely accurate measurements in one tenth of the time I did manually without the cost of drawing reproduction. The Final Reports are perfectly formatted in MSExcel and ready for Bill of Material development.

Cons

I am still looking for a Con. I thought that since CountFire is in Great Britain that communications might be hampered by five, (5) time zones, but this was not the case. CountFire was there 24X7 to solve my self-inflicted start-up issues.

Feedback

It is beneficial in a lot of aspects as it speeds up the take off process

Pros

Speed in doing take offs Being able to remove the background on "busy" drawings so symbols are easier to find

Cons

Although you can create Zones to separate from the legend, it can sometimes pull through legend details and transfer them to the drop box quants. It can be difficult to separate symbols in different areas. For example if you highlight twin socket it picks them all up but you might want to separate those on Dado Trunking or on a wall or area because they have a different finish

When it works it's a real time saver, but holy cow it's very expensive

I found the customer support was second to none, there is a little chat box in the corner when you are doing take offs and if you are having any issues then you can talk on here and in my experience you get help normally within half an hour. The first 2 drawings that were quite big the auto count feature didn't work and so I had to count manually and I had software already a lot cheaper that I could do that with. When i had a drawing that worked, it worked well and saved a lot of time. But honestly the cost of this software you'd have to do a heck of a lot of estimating with drawings that work to make up for the huge cost.

Pros

The auto count feature when it works does save a lot of time. The customer support and training is excellent.

Cons

The cost is way too much. not all drawings work with the auto count feature.

Best Estimating Takeoff Software

I've only been using it for a month or so but it has been very nice. The support team is phenomenal. They are very good at fixing any problems you might face. There is also a feature request page that you can request new features and everyone can vote on them and then the Countfire team will work on implementing that feature. The Countfire team is very active and always looking for new ways to make the experience better.

Pros

Features that I like the best: The Support: User Interface: I really like the clean simple user interface. It looks very nice and up to date unlike a lot of the competition. Autocount: In comparison to other software such as Livecount, Planswift, Bluebeam, eTakeoff, etc. Countfire is by far faster. I've used Livecount & Planswift the most. Countfire can do in 2 seconds what Livecount & Planswift takes 3 minutes to do. I can select a fixture type to autocount and it will find every fixture with extreme accuracy on every plan page in 2 seconds or less (Tested with a plan set of 120+ pages) Background Hide: Countfire has the ability to hide the background on a drawing. This is very useful when you have a messy plan set or when all the furniture and details are on the same page as the electrical. You can toggle it on and off. You can also define what is a part of the background and it will hide it. This makes it so much easier to see only the electrical stuff. Hide Counted Symbols. (Only works for symbols counted with autocount). This is a feature that most of the estimating takeoff software has but this does it in a much different way. It will actually hide the symbols that have been counted not just the digitizer count itself. This allows you to toggle off everything that has been counted and now you can see what hasn't been. This only works on the symbols that are counted with autocount. You can still hide the manual digitizer counts but it won't hide the symbol.

Cons

The estimating side isn't as advanced as some of the other competitors but they are currently working on a big update that will fix most of that.