Hard Costs

Hard Costs are tangible assets that you need to acquire to complete your construction project. Usually, hard costs are easily quantifiable and can be determined with such certain that usually they are detailed by an experienced estimator. In general, hard costs represent any part of the work or costs associated with the actual project.

Hard Costs

Below is a list of common construction hard costs.

• Building Structure- Hard costs associated with the structure. This category includes all labor and material required to complete the whole building or structure.
• Site- The difference from the first one to this, is that this category includes all utilities underground, aerial, water systems, drains, fire, paving, grading, etc.
• Landscape – Hard costs related to landscaping works, including grass, lawns, trees, mulch, shrubs, fertilizer, and every other material included in the construction of the projects based on the architectural drawings.
• Contingency- Contingency is a reserved amount of money covering all estimated unforeseen conditions that might affect the construction process. Although it is not an amount that you can measure, it can be estimated from historical data between a five and ten percent of the total project costs for new projects and between 10 and 20 percent for remodeling projects.

Change Orders- Change orders might be included under the building structure item in the hard costs. Some builders separate this item from building structure, for accountability process, but it also includes all additional expenses related to the construction of the project.