🇵🇭 Philippines · DPWH-style estimate · Work section
Preliminaries in a the Philippines bill of quantities
In the Philippines, the preliminaries section of a Bill of Quantities / Program of Works is measured to DPWH-style estimate (MasterFormat-influenced, Philippines). It covers 7 principal groups of work — site establishment — hoarding, site office, storage, sanitation through to site clearance and making good on completion — and is headed in the bill as "PART 3 — PRELIMINARIES".
Preliminaries is one of the sections every Bill of Quantities / Program of Works in the Philippines is built from. This page sets out what belongs in it, the unit each item is measured in under DPWH-style estimate (MasterFormat-influenced, Philippines), the local conventions that change the quantities here, and a worked example for a 150 m² house — plus the errors in this section that actually cost money on site.
What this section covers
- Site establishment — hoarding, site office, storage, sanitation
- Temporary services: water, power and their connection charges
- Contractor's supervision and site management for the contract period
- Plant and scaffolding held on site rather than used by a single trade
- Insurances, performance bond and statutory levies
- Setting out, survey and as-built records
- Site clearance and making good on completion
How each item is measured
| Item | Unit | Measurement rule |
|---|---|---|
| Site establishment | item | Priced as a lump sum for the whole contract, not measured against any quantity of work. |
| Supervision and management | week | Time-related: measured against the contract period, so a longer programme costs more even if the work does not change. |
| Scaffolding | item / m² | Either a lump sum for the building or measured on the elevation area it serves. |
| Insurances and bonds | item | A percentage of contract value, entered as a lump sum. |
| Temporary services | item | Connection charges plus a running allowance for the programme duration. |
Local conventions in Philippines
- —With no municipal sewer, temporary sanitation means hired units serviced on a schedule — a recurring cost across the whole programme, not a one-off.
- —A subtropical climate affects the wet-weather allowance: programme time lost to rain is a preliminaries cost, not a trade cost, and it is the single most common under-estimate in this section.
What goes wrong in this section
- —Preliminaries typically run 8–15% of contract value. A bill that shows 3% is not cheap — it means the cost has been buried in the trade rates where you cannot see or control it.
- —Time-related items scale with the programme. Every week of delay re-prices this section, which is why extension-of-time claims land here first.
- —Omitting preliminaries entirely and 'spreading it in the rates' makes variations impossible to price fairly later.
Get every section measured, not just this one
Upload your dimensioned drawings and get a complete bill of quantities / program of works in the DPWH-style estimate format, priced in PHP (₱), with every rate source-cited.
Generate my Philippines BoQPreliminaries — frequently asked
What goes into the preliminaries section of a bill of quantities in the Philippines?
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Site establishment — hoarding, site office, storage, sanitation; Temporary services: water, power and their connection charges; Contractor's supervision and site management for the contract period; Plant and scaffolding held on site rather than used by a single trade; and 3 further groups of work. Under DPWH-style estimate each is described, measured in its own unit, and priced separately so the total is auditable line by line.
What units is preliminaries measured in?
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Site establishment in item, Supervision and management in week, Scaffolding in item / m², Insurances and bonds in item. Getting the unit right matters more than getting the quantity precisely right — a contractor can adjust a quantity, but cannot price an item measured in the wrong unit at all.
How is preliminaries different in the Philippines from elsewhere?
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With no municipal sewer, temporary sanitation means hired units serviced on a schedule — a recurring cost across the whole programme, not a one-off.
What is the most common costly mistake in this section?
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Preliminaries typically run 8–15% of contract value. A bill that shows 3% is not cheap — it means the cost has been buried in the trade rates where you cannot see or control it.
How do I get this section measured for my own project?
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Upload your dimensioned drawings to Enormous Buildings. The bill is produced in the DPWH-style estimate format, grouped by section with preliminaries priced in PHP (₱), and every unit rate carries a source so a the Philippines quantity surveyor can check it.