The National Rules of Measurement NRM1

This article is all about The National Rules of Measurement NRM1 ‘Order of cost estimating and cost planning for capital building works’

In January 2013, the Standard method measurement was replaced by a suite of documents called the National Rules of Measurement 1-3.

NRM1 deals with producing ‘order of cost estimates’ and ‘cost-plans’ for capital building works that align perfectly with the Architects Work Plan.

The NRM1 produces a set of rules/guides which cover how to measure, describe and codify building construction works during the early parts of the pre-construction phase.

These include:

• Preliminaries
• Measurable works
• Overhead and profit
• Project team and design team fees
• Risk allowances
• Inflation
• Other development and project costs

In NRM1 cost-plans can be produced in several formats including elemental and work section.

Advantages of NRM1

The guide gives a standardised, best practice approach to creating cost estimates and cost-plans for construction. The guide is developed so that the cost estimate can be developed into a cost-plan which can in turn be developed into a pre-tender estimate and a full tender document.

Construction costs can be managed from ‘cradle to grave’ with the Client given several opportunities to approve costs before the next stage of the design is moved onto.

Cost data can be collected and pre-tender and post completion of a project and fed back into future cost estimates and construction cost-plans. This completes what is referred to as the ‘cost management cycle’.