Excavation For Budget

Granrey

Hi, I’ve been going trough the treads and I don’t see an answer for my question. If there is a tread that I have missed, you are welcome to give me some heck and please direct me to it. LOL

I’m an estimator for a general contractor for multifamily buildings. My struggle is with excavation. I know how to calculate volumes for excavation (Cut & Fill, backfilling, compaction, swell, shrinkage, Cross section method plus other things from school training) but I’m missing unit pricing for these volumes.

The problem for the unit pricing is that I have to assume the equipment the trade might use, as well as the following rates: equipment rental, operators/helpers labor, equipment productivity, fuel consumption and so on (as I was taught as school).

I usually have very little time to submit a detail budget for a project (framing, mechanical, electrical, ect).

I wonder if there is a practical way to estimate this based on previous job costs, since I don’t have to be too accurate. I can be up to 30% over and that could be ok. As you might notice, my concern is being lower rather than too high.

The excavator scope on our company includes basement excavation and backfill foundation perimeter. Our buildings main floor area range from 20,000 to 40,000.00 ft2 and our crawl space are about 6 feet deep.

The excavator has to rough grade our parking lot and landscape areas. Our sites are usually couple feet up or down from final grade.

The excavator has to dump excess material (which I’ve told they sell to others, LOL), I don’t recall any borrow case since our final grades are close to actual grades and because we get a lot of material from the basement excavation.

Any advice on how to do this?

cexcavation

Welcome to our world!!! If you come up with an accurate/profitable way to bid large scale excavation projects based on unit pricing alone, then you have accomplished something that I have tried and given up on On a more serious note, in my experience every job is so different with regards to ground conditions, municipality requirements, dump site locations, material pricing/distance, insurance/bonding requirements, mobilization costs, etc. etc. that unit pricing becomes more of a job specific item unless you can find a very similar project in the near vicinity performed within a reasonably close time-i.e. within 1yr. The way most of my unit pricing is derived is based on experience, site evaluation w/locates in place, material pricing, etc. Sometimes time restrictions do not allow for all of these things to fall into place on smaller projects and so I rely somewhat on the good ol fashioned "gut"-not real scientific, but somehow reliable Point being, I work with a large builder for single family dwellings who includes everything but excavation in their bids for the reasons I stated above. The homeowner is responsible for getting the excavation bids separately due to the large variables.........Once the excavation is done, everything else is the same as anywhere else. A flat pad is a flat pad to everyone else when it comes to concrete, framing etc. so unit pricing applies at that point. Hopefully someone can correct my advice and I can learn something new, but I have seen many bids for the same projects where the unit pricing is all over the board, but the contract prices are quite competitive with one another........I would attribute the competive final pricing with working backwards mixed with an experienced "gut"..........bigger "guts" don't necessarily mean more experienced!!! Good luck.

Jason

Blas

DITTO!!!!!

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tgeb

I could not have said it better myself!

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Tom

www.gebcon.com

rino1494

This is something that cannot be answered correctly by anyone here. I suggest consulting with your excavator on this.

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Granrey

Guys,

I really appreciate the answers, in my first job; I was working as and estimator for a custom home builder. The owner of the company and the excavator had a hard time agreeing on pricing. As the estimator, I was taking shots from both sides on every home.

The owner wanted me “to allow” a “fix amount” of dollars per ft2 of main floor area and that’s what I did since he was MY BOSS, of course I would warn him but my advice would fall into deaf ears. The excavator quotations were rarely close (either too low or too high) to that calculation and the excavator would complaint to me saying the allowance does not work.

On my second job as estimator for single family home builder, we had quotations for all the house models in every subdivision. These quotations were good for a period of time (1 year, I think). This is a good solution for applicable situations.

In my actual job, the buildings are always different in size as well as location but within my city, similar to my first job and the new manager wants quantities as well as unit prices attached to it. Based on those we would determine the budget.

I think, I will calculate the volumes, use my “guts” to determine the overall price based on experience and previous jobs. Then, I will play with these two to get the unit pricing to satisfy his instructions.

By the way, I have a different excavator every time since the buildings are tendered.

dayexco

i find it better to find a contractor i trust, let him make some money so he makes damn sure i make money...that's the problem with most GC's today....they go trolling, looking for the cheapest hooker on the corner.

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someday, i'll be as patient as Nick.

Granrey

Being honest, I think sub-contractors and women should be treated the same way. If you found the right one you should do your best to keep it.

If you think you have found the right subcontractor but actually he is not. You could be doing one of the worst mistakes in your construction career. I know many people who have lost their jobs by being on that situation.

Also, it depends who is running the company. Owners who are managers can handle this situation better. Owners who do not manage the company tend to have hard time understanding why you do not shop around for better prices.

I have worked on both situations and you always have to follow what the owner wants, the only thing you can do is to give the best advice every time.

rino1494

Couldn't agree more. The contractors that we work for rarely ever ask us for a price. The just give us a set of plans and tell us to get it done. We meet with the contractors and go over the site and explain to them what should be done and what we can do to save them money. We hand a bill it and never get questioned on the price. We have a working trust with each other. We take care of them and they take care of us. Our main bread and butter contractor, we have been working for him for 20 yrs. Others have been around the 10-15 yr mark and a couple new ones that were recommened by guess who, the same contractors that have been loyal to us for years.

Dealing with different subs all the time is just asking for trouble. It is like prostiution. If you mess with enough of them, eventually you will get a disease.

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Life is hard. It is harder when you are stupid

Uncle Sam wants YOU....to speak ENGLISH