Equipment cost basis
A true internal rate per machine covering ownership, maintenance, fuel, and transport, charged to the projects that used it.
Chapter 2 is step 02
The chapter explains the thinking. The step page is the working reference: what it depends on, what it feeds, and how to tell whether it's installed. Step 02 needs step 01 to be true first.
Before and after
What readers ask
What does chapter 2 of CONTROL cover?
A true internal rate per machine covering ownership, maintenance, fuel, and transport, charged to the projects that used it. It's chapter 2 of 8, and it maps to step 02 of the system.
Is there a template with this chapter?
Yes. Chapter 2 carries a QR code that opens the equipment cost basis worksheet. Ownership, maintenance, fuel and transport in one sheet, so equipment gets charged to the job that used it.
What has to be true before this chapter works?
Steps 01 come first: job cost structure. Installing this one ahead of them produces numbers nobody trusts.
Should I read chapter 2 out of order?
You can. Chapter 2 sits between job cost structure and overhead calculation, and it reads on its own. Installing out of order is the part that doesn't work, because step 02 needs 01 to be true first.
Josh Luebker ran commercial construction projects before he ran the numbers behind them, on data centres, military bases, hospitals, and high-rises. He wrote CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System, which is an eight-step framework for commercial subcontractors, and it publishes on October 1, 2026. He is a master electrician who moved into the office and kept the field vocabulary.
Sulphur Prairie Operations LLC maintains the benchmark reference behind these figures. Every edition is reconciled against the newest CFMA survey release before it publishes here. Where a figure changes between editions, the older edition keeps its year in the title so a citation to it stays correct.