What is a house construction BOQ for private work?
A house construction BOQ for private work is a bill of quantities written for private jobs. It uses plain-language items and units as local contractors quote them, with a separate material rate and labour rate for every item. It suits turnkey, labour-only or mixed contracts, and gives cost per square foot and a payment schedule.
A bill of quantities for building a private house or builder floor, priced the way private jobs actually are: plain-language items instead of schedule-of-rates codes, units as local contractors quote them, and a separate material rate and labour rate for every item. The same sheet works for a turnkey contract, a labour-only contract or a mix, and gives you the cost per square foot and a stage-wise payment schedule.
Pricing a government or PWD tender instead? Use the BOQ format with schedule-of-rates items.
What is in the house construction BOQ workbook?
- Project Details — owner, site, built-up area, contract type, and the contingency, profit and GST percentages.
- BOQ — twelve sections from site work and foundations to painting, plumbing and electrical, with suggested items and blank rows to add your own.
- Summary — each section's material, labour and total, add-ons, grand total and cost per sqft.
- Payment Schedule — stage-wise payments as a percentage of the contract value, with amounts paid and balance.
- Filled Sample — part of a G+1 house worked through, with illustrative rates.
How does the house construction BOQ sheet calculate?
- Rate = material rate + labour rate.
- Material amount = quantity × material rate, and labour amount = quantity × labour rate, each rounded to the paisa. Amount = material amount + labour amount.
- An item with a quantity but no rate shows RATE MISSING and is left out of the totals; the Summary counts how many.
- Contingency and contractor's profit are each a percentage of the cost of works; GST is applied to the total before GST.
- Cost per sqft = grand total ÷ total built-up area, with material and labour per sqft shown separately.
- The payment schedule works out each stage's amount from its percentage of the grand total and flags percentages that do not add up to 100%.
Worked example from the sample sheet (illustrative rates): 420 cft of RCC footings at ₹180 material and ₹70 labour per cft comes to ₹75,600 + ₹29,400 = ₹1,05,000. Across the eight sample items the material comes to ₹7,03,650 and the labour to ₹2,93,900 — ₹9,97,550 in all, or ₹554.19 per sqft over 1,800 sqft. The owner-supplied tiles carry a material rate of 0, and the skirting line, which has no rate yet, is flagged instead of being counted as zero.
How do you use the house construction BOQ template?
- Fill in Project Details, including the total built-up area in square feet.
- On the BOQ, overwrite or delete the suggested items that do not fit your job and add yours in the blank rows.
- Enter the quantity, material rate and labour rate for each item. For labour-only work, enter 0 as the material rate.
- Clear every RATE MISSING line, then check the Summary and the cost per sqft.
- Agree the stage-wise payment percentages on the Payment Schedule.
What should you check before relying on the house construction BOQ?
- No rates are supplied. Enter current rates from quotations for your city and specification; any figures on the sample sheet are illustrative only and must not be used for real estimating or billing.
- Write what each item includes into its description before the BOQ goes to a contractor — an unstated inclusion is the commonest dispute on a private job.
- State what the built-up area includes (balconies, staircase, terrace room), or the cost per sqft cannot be compared with anyone else's.
- GST depends on the contractor's registration and the type of contract. Enter the rate that applies, or 0.
Which BOQ template do I need?
| Your job | Use this template |
|---|---|
| Government, PWD or public-sector tender priced from a schedule of rates | BOQ Format in Excel |
| New house or builder floor, private work — turnkey or labour contract | House Construction BOQ Format in Excel (Private Work) (this page) |
| Renovation or repair mixing several trades: dismantling, waterproofing, tiling, painting, fabrication, POP | Renovation & Trade Works BOQ Format in Excel |
| Only waterproofing: terrace, toilets, basement or water tank | Waterproofing BOQ Format in Excel |
| Only flooring and tiling: tiles, stone, skirting and dado | Flooring & Tiling BOQ Format in Excel |
| Only painting: interior, exterior, steel and woodwork | Painting BOQ Format in Excel |
| Only the boundary wall and gate | Boundary Wall BOQ Format in Excel |
| Office, shop or home interior fit-out | Interior Work BOQ Format in Excel |
| Only plumbing and sanitary work | Plumbing & Sanitary BOQ Format in Excel |
| Only internal electrical work | Electrical BOQ Format in Excel |
| A building's fire-fighting system: pumps, hydrants, sprinklers, extinguishers | Fire Fighting BOQ Format in Excel |
| A road, pavement or internal road | Road Work BOQ Format in Excel |
| Adding several BOQs up into one project total | Abstract of Cost Format in Excel |
What does each column mean?
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Description of item | Plain-language item, as it will be agreed with the contractor. Write in what the rate includes — shuttering, curing, material make, debris removal. |
| Unit | As local contractors quote it: sqft, cft, rft, kg, nos, LS. Editable — keep the quantity and the rate in the same unit. |
| Quantity | Measured from your drawings or on site. |
| Material rate (Rs.) | Entered by you, per unit. 0 where the owner supplies the material or the contract is labour only. |
| Labour rate (Rs.) | Entered by you, per unit. |
| Rate (Rs.) | Auto-calculated. Material rate + labour rate. Blank if neither is entered. |
| Material / Labour amount (Rs.) | Auto-calculated. Quantity x each rate, rounded to the paisa, so the material and labour shares are always visible. |
| Amount (Rs.) | Auto-calculated. Material amount + labour amount. |
| Check | RATE MISSING when a quantity has no rate (the line is left out of the totals, never counted as zero); QTY MISSING for the reverse. |
Everything in this band is priced on a bill of quantities. The BOQ format in Excel is that bill — pre-sectioned by trade, with an abstract that totals it — and every rate you settle here is applied against its measured quantities.
Get the quantities from your drawings
A template gives you the structure. The measuring — scaling every quantity off the drawing set — is still three to seven days of work. Upload your architectural and structural PDFs and InstaBOQ reads the drawings, extracts the quantities, and fills this same structure.