How to calculate the amount of dirt you'll have to move and the cost of owning and operating the machines you'll do it with. Detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to assign bid prices to each part of the job, including labor and equipment costs. Also, the best ways to set up an organized and logical estimating system, take off from contour maps, estimate quantities in irregular areas, and figure your overhead. This revised edition includes a chapter on earthwork estimating software. As with any tool, you have to pick the right one. Written by an experienced dirt contractor and instructor of computer estimating software, this chapter covers the program types, explains how they work, gives the basics of how to use them, and discusses what will work best for the type of work you handle.