Lead Safe Windo Replacement

PreferredResto

I am bidding a job ofr Ohio HUD and i am kind of lost. I know what to charge for installing a normal wood common window and I get most of those when i do bid them. Now these require lead safe practices when being replaced. You have to put plastic down over the whole roo mand wipe down walls etc. I can easily figure out my cost on doing them. Thats not the problem. Im interested to see how high i can mark these up when i turn in the bid. I know that 3 other companies are bidding on these. I would hate to turn in a bid of 350 a window when the market price is around 500 due to the lead safe requirements. Anyone have any insight on this? For reference I normally install these same windows for 265 a piece. labor and material

DavidC

If lead safe practices are required, I would bet your bidding grant work for HUD $$$. You will need to be certified before you sign the contract. Not a biggy, it's an 8 hour course with an open book test.

We also bid these once in awhile and find that the lead safe practices can add as much as 50% to the cost, but should really be done on a case by case basis. Extreme cases require you to put up the family in a hotel while you work, although definately not the norm.

Look at the job and try to dechiper what you will be doing over and above your norm. For example, we might add 1- 1 1/2hrs. to seal a room and protect the carpet. This would be on a room to room basis, then add to the total job for the cost of the plastic, disposable suits, respirator cartridges and so on. I also like to add the cost of 1 retesting in case we fail the first time. We haven't failed yet, but the $800 retest is on us if we do.

Our most extreme case was a 25k contract that contained nearly 10k in lead safe practices. On the other hand we had a 30k job with $1200 in LSP, so it depends.

Your biggest problem will be that contracts are awarded on a lowest bid basis and these jobs seem to attract lowballers.

Good Luck
Dave

__________________
www.CookContractingLLC.com

PreferredResto

sweet. I am expecting some low ballers. Our costs are pretty low really so i guess we could be considered a low baller. I priced it according to what I normally would then added the additional cost of the energy star cert per window since my material cost is about 25$ higher each window. Then i priced it at 2.5 hours labor per window. I mark the material up 20% and mark up my labor 100% I didnt really price in a retest if one was required but the margin on the entire job is around 30% and its a 14k job. In my mind we can afford to eat 1000$ if we have to for a retest and cleaning.

This is myfirst hud job so we shall se if we snag it or not. we sent 1 guy through the lead safe training last week and the rest of us are going in 2 weeks. I dont think we will be starting this job before then so we should be fine.