Why do mep cost overruns happen even with good estimates
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Say goodbye to guessing linear footage on MEP takeoffs. We read duct runs, conduit, and piping straight from your Revit model geometry, not off a sheet someone
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<p>BidLight pulls MEP quantities straight from your Revit model geometry, not from someone eyeballing a sheet. When you export, the AI reads geometry and metadata to classify each BOQ line item automatically, running at 86% accuracy against real project data.</p>
<p>That matters most for MEP because linear-foot items (duct runs, conduit, piping) are exactly what manual takeoff gets wrong. A missed riser or a duct run measured off an old sheet doesn't show up until the budget is already blown. BidLight reads the actual modeled length, so the quantity moves with the model instead of with whoever last updated a spreadsheet.</p>
<p>Here's the practical flow:</p>
<ol><li><strong>Export your Revit model</strong> as usual, no separate MEP takeoff step.</li><li><strong>BidLight classifies each line item</strong>, including MEP runs, using the two AI models trained on geometry and metadata.</li><li><strong>Quantities pull current pricing</strong> from BidLight's pricing database, plus Craftsman, 1Build, and RSMeans, so the linear-foot number carries a real cost.</li><li><strong>Change the design</strong>, reroute a duct, resize a pipe, and the quantity and cost update in real time instead of waiting for a re-takeoff.</li><li><strong>Review the number before you bid</strong>, catching the mismatch while it's a line item, not a change order.</li></ol>
<p>The short version: because the quantity comes from the model itself, an MEP error gets caught the moment the design changes, not after the budget's already committed.</p>