How Long Does It Take You To Write A Bid

A.W.Davis

It takes me roughly 2 business days or about 4 hours total.....I like to cover every cent and bit of material expected to use before I am confident in my estimate!

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A.W. Davis Construction Co.
http://www.awdavisconstruction.com/
Your friendly remodeling contractor

JamesNLA

Exactly. I see what guys are talking about.

Gentlemen like Mudmaster, who do pretty much the same job over and over, with little dynamics can spend FAR less time adding everything up because It's just SF.....basically. However jobs that have many phases and especially remodel work, just takes far far longer.

This thread wasn't about how fast you are to create a bid, I think most of us on here are intelligent and can do math. However I get it that there is a big difference between the different trades/work proposed.

I too am a fan of not loosing my a$$, and being with my markets going rate - accounting for allowences - Ins - WMC - and all other related costs, it's taking longer for me to come up with a price that I am comfortable with. AND I use the hell out of Excel and all my bids are typed up in a professional template that I made. And at the end of the month, I still make at least the same doing small service call jobs. However IMO larger jobs are easier.
Thanks boys!

Ted W

I've never been very good at estimating. Seems the more time I spend calculating the worse I do. I just offer to do the job for $xx for the labor, they pay for the materials. I know I could never run a large company that way, or even have more than one or two helpers, but it's what works for me. My best estimates are when I don't spend too much time thinking about it. So for me, about 10 minutes. If they don't like the price or the way I do business, then we don't do business. It's that simple.

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Carpentry and Woodworking - Chicago / North Shore - Ted's Carpentry

"I don't know everything but at least I think I do, and that's what really matters."

Mud Master

James,

You are correct in saying that all my new work is relatively simple compared to a remodel where you are trying to build off of the HO's mind, and not blueprints.

However, tenant fit outs are 80% custom to suite thier needs, and those are not as easy because nothing is standard.

When I first come on the job and do the "shell" it is firewall fabrication(which takes the longest) the hallway, four walls, and a standard drop ceiling to cover the decking. But when it comes time for the fit outs, it is much more involved, from where they want walls, to plumbing,electrical placement, to door placement, to cabinets/countertops, to flooring, to a different type of acoustical tile(not all want a standard NDF), to type of paint(walls only get primed during shell construction), speciality storefront,etc..

Those take alot more time to calculate. I have done a FEDEX Kinkos on one site, and done another somewhere else, with two completely different set ups. Restaraunts are even more involved because of FRP,Stainless,Tile, etc.. Sometimes a customer decides they want trim and chair rail instead of your basic cove base..so long story short, it is much more complicated.

Like you, it can take me up to 8 hours DESK time to do a proper estimate, which does not include material pricing, subcontractor pricing,etc..it can take a few days or more to get it right.

In closing, I would rather spend a week on a proposal and have all my ducks in a row, than to spend an hour on a proposal and have my ducks flying in four different directions.

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Cdat

Invest in a CAD program and a laptop and keep all of your past work on it and you can sit down and design the basics with the HO'er.

The only time consuming part is if you have to bring other people in to take measurments. Then sit back and let the customer wait and fidget. Give 'em a call or two to reconfirm specific points. The program will do all the work for you and you just have to update materials cost changes. Usually as soon as you enter the data and hit enter, 5 minutes at the MOST.

fathersonfab

Cdat,

Which program are you using for the CAD? It does the estimating too?