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I have switched over to 27.1 and I can't for the life of me figure out how to automatically figure waste factoring on sketch roofs.

Thanks for the reply.

I have spent about 4 hours each day for the past two weeks studying. I eventually discovered about the main floor plan showing up under the second level.

I am studying for the Level 2 for X27 and I think I am ready. Do you have any insight as to what is required for Level 3 Certification?

I hope they don't start requiring XM8 certification. If I have to get another certificate, I'm going to have to build a new room on the house to hold it. I must have had 50 XM8 classes. It got to where I only learned one or two new things per class, but I always learned something. Now, I only take the free classes.

The time to learn XM8 is between storms. Once you deploy, there will be little time to learn new things and you'll probably just invent some work around solution and move on.

I used to do A-frame houses, circular rooms, in ground swimming pools, spiral stair cases, pool cages, decks, turret roofs, and whatever I could think of using the various tools in sketch and save them as templates. A lot of those things are now new tools in XM8. As you know, XM8 charges $20 for a phone call, but their chat services are free.

Any difficult item that you can't do or figure out for yourself, you can take to the chat lines. Late in the evening or early morning is a good time. Trick to using them is to not stay online for hours. Let them answer as best they can and disconnect. If they don't get it right, try again tomorrow or follow up the next day. The guys that work days are better than some of them on night shift...but not always. The wait time on days is not good if there are storms going on anywhere.

If Level 3 Certification gets you more work, let us know. I think I could handle it, but I just don't want them getting any more of my money than they already have unless I get a real return on my investment.

Randy C

I've tried to use tic sheets but they have never worked out. I used legal pads and the scopes were okay but not in good order for my wife who writes them up. Sometimes the items of one elevation would run into another and we would have to review the photos to tell where the item belonged.

Pre-designed tic sheets were a disaster for me and her. I finally printed my own pages for Roof, Front, Right, Back, Rear, Left, and interior rooms with items listed top to bottom as I do them. I had color dividers to keep them separate. That keep things straight and in proper sequence but too many pages flying in the wind, sometimes I wrote an item on the wrong elevation...especially gutters and downspouts on corners of the house. The pictures would clear things up, but that wastes time.

Now, I use a single interview page with questions I ask the insured. (We fill this out by phone when we can, but sometimes on site). I use blank pages on steno pad for the exterior. Usually one page for roof, Front, Back, and Rear, and then each interior room if needed. If the damage is light, I'll not need all these pages and just draw heavy lines between elevations. If the XM8 code comes quickly to mind, I'll use that, but usually not.

To keep various items straight, especially the close-ups, this is what I do: I use a six foot folding rule as a pointer. the first six inches of one side is painted white or frost for front, red for right. The other end is painted blue for back and lime green for left. Now when a screen damage detail has a lime green folding rule through the hole in the screen...we know it is a screen on left side. A hole in the siding with a red pointer is a hole on the right side. To measure the parts of the elevation to the eave, I pull the six foot rule out, place it on the ground, and put the disto on top and get my measurement, adding 6 foot to it. That keeps me from having to place the disto on the ground bending my worn out old body out of the way of the laser. I can also accomplish the same thing by putting the bottom of the disto at my mouth since I'm right at six foot two. (I have to turm my cap backwards or the laser hits the brim).

Sorry this is so long, but this is the way I do it.

We usually have the roof diagram print out done roughly from an Assurecalc photo ($7) before we get there. This way we know if we need to allow more or less time for a scope. I'll mark the measurements on that, draw in the soft metal and other details. If the roof doesn't match, which happens on 2 or 3% of the roofs, I'll make a note and use the back to draw the real roof. Almost always there will be some part of the roof not showing in the picture which I have to add and dimension.
With assurecalc only two clear measurements are needed. Fence or driveways work...but they have to have very distinct lines. We did have one disaster that happened because I used the measurements of a large well house to replace a measurement taken of a ridge with the roofer holding one end of the tape. The roofer had his back turned to me and I couldn't see what he was doing with the end of the tape. This measurement did not compare well with the other measurments I took of the roof, so I used the well house. I'll never do that again!

Simple interior diagrams of rooms, I sketch on the legal pads, with names the insureds give me for those rooms. If there are two or more rooms, I try to draw in the rooms that connect the two or more damaged.

One thing that I do now that I did not use to do is use graph paper to draw in open design floors and ceilings that flow through the house, around and back to connect. Especially rooms with angles other than 90 degree corners. Drawing those rooms freehand would always come together at the end. With graph paper, they work just fine. For the angles, I just use the folding rule pressed up against the baseboard, and then lifted up gently to keep the angle. I place my electronic pitch gauge/protractor on that to render the angle. Now a complicated floor or ceiling will not stray off from reality.

Hi there. I am trying to make an scetch with a sloped floor! One side of the room has a ramp for wheelchair access, and the other side has the slope difference made up with steps. Can't figure out how to slope the floor, only the ceiling!
Thanks very much!

Regarding tic-sheets, I don't use them.  

I use graph paper and only draw diagrams.  My camera records the scope for both structural and contents damages.  The contents photos provide macro views of make, model, and serial numbers.

I've been doing it this way since '05 and it works great for me with large and small losses.

I recently had an adjuster show me that he could lable his photos using the Function Keys.  F1 was Front Elevation, F2 was Left Elevation, etc.  He opened his photos in the claim, place his cursor in the Image Name box and then hit the corresponding Function Key.  This is a shortcut that will help me label photos faster and I thought others could use it, too.  Any help would be appreciated.

Posted By Lindy on 04 Sep 2010 12:42 PM
I have switched over to 27.1 and I can't for the life of me figure out how to automatically figure waste factoring on sketch roofs.

Unfortunately the auto sketch feature requires a creative touch unless your images are purchased from Pictometry or other roof imaging software. Even when using this the features are difficult for non CAD people and manual adjustments tend to remove the previous "auto" calculations. Below is a great free step by step training manual for FREE imaging using google maps, MapsGL and  Google Earth. 

http://rightbrothersgc.com/Contract...bsp; 

I have Xact 25, it crashed, I have pulled out the estimates by going to

 C: \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Xactware\Xactimate25\xm8\data\estimates\instance=0

I pasted them into an active xact 25 at same location but they won't show up when I open Xact 25.    They look just like the the ones that do show up and are in the same file location.   Any ideas

I need to make a bay window roof. I used the Bay window with roof but once in place, I can't update the proper measurements. I don't need the window, just the roof. Any help?

Is there any shortcuts to labeling photos in Xactimate?

Has anyone else had a problem with the latest Xactimate small update causing Xactimate to crash and burn. Right now, I am #11 in the Live Support Que and started about an hour ago at #39.

I also had problems with the small update. My issue was that the install would hang up. They finally helped me by taking over my computer, loading and changing many file settings. This was when I tried out Xact28 on a win8. I have since downgraded back to 27.5 on a win7 computer.

I hope they can fix your issue.

dparsons,

did you ever get straightened out? I too had this problem when I downloaded the new price lists. It just told me that a small update was available, but I never was able to get it installed. I even went to XM8 and asked for an answer and even got a reference number and they said that they would get back w/ me. That was two months ago and I still have not got an answer from them.  Same thing when I downloaded the new Aug price list. I'm running 27.5 w/ Win. 7.

I am looking for some advice on passing the xactimate 28 level 1 certification test. Has any one else had trouble passing the test?

Thanks

 

Posted By dlubrano01 on 12/31/2013 1:39 PM

I am looking for some advice on passing the xactimate 28 level 1 certification test. Has any one else had trouble passing the test?

Thanks

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Study!!