Paving

Upchuck

I got a price on base coat for 10 condo driveways we need done from a guy we always use. There are 6- 30' x 12' & 4- 20' x 12' drives. Total tonage is 44 tons. He wants $6100. That is $138/ton. Asphalt costs $75/ton. Seems high to me. The driveways are all subgraded. He can drop paver & get these done in one morning. I don't have time on this job to look for another paver.

I can do them by hand myself. We aren't busy, but my roller is just about done & we haven't done driveways by hand in years. I'm not sure how to approach situation. I went to school with the paver and sent a lot of business his way. It seems like he is charging price from when asphalt cost $95/ton. How would you handle this situation. Talk to paver or do driveways by hand.

tgeb

That's less than 2 bucks a foot.

I don't know asphalt work, but that sounds cheap enough to me. They are doing 10 driveways @ 610 each. (average)

Using your figures he is getting 280/driveway to put it down. If you don't want to pay that, then do it with your crew.

Maybe Vinny will be by and chime in, he knows asphalt.

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Tom

www.gebcon.com

concretemasonry

The price is reasonable and if you do not have time to shop around and can do it yourself, give it a try.

You will not get it done as fast and timing can be important this time of the year (depending on where you are in MA). At this time of the year, good pavers have more work than they probably can handle for a half day job where there is a little time involved in moving. If you have had a good relationship with him and your volume is significant, you can always approach him about the price, but not demand anything. The work he has lined up may be significant.

In some areas plants are mothballed for the winter and the production is moved resulting in longer hauls.

Just because you went to school with him does not cut much, except you can talk to him and ask him to do it cheaper for the chance to attend school with you in the past.

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

TERM101

I get $50 a ton just to run it through my machine and roll it.

Upchuck

I'm not looking to nickel & dime him. I hate when people ask me to lower my price & wouldn't do that to him. I just think that he is overcharging me. Also, he's not busy & only has 1 employee. I even offered to help him if he needed it. This project has over 150 condos & I think almost $70/ton for pave & roll is too much. I may be wrong.

PipeGuy

Seems high compared to what? At 44 tons he's gotta place a base course less than 2-1/2" thick - hardly any economy of scales at work there.
$610 per drive doesn't seem high to me; neither does $2,800 a day assuming he does them all in a day. What's it work out per condo SF? $.50 / SF?

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Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered for...for just such an emergency. -Foghorn Leghorn

Little

Seems like a fair price to me. Around here guys will get $2.00 to $2.50sf for subgrade, pave, and roll at about the same thickness.

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Commercial Construction, Central Jersey

Vinny

Your darn right I will.

Upchuck, its a bargain. He's already used over 50% of his budget in asphalt. I havent even figured his labor yet but I can almost bet he'll use another 25% in salary and burden with out anything for equipment (truck, roller, compactor) so I'd say at that rate he can even go broke doing jobs at that margin (25%) if he owns any real iron and has to pay for a yard.

I dont want to sound critical Upchuck (and I am sorry if i do) but you should understand the cost of iron.

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Roccies Asphalt Paving
The Right Way Driveway Company
If you say you cant, your a loser. If you say you wont, your a quiter. Which one do you want to be?

Upchuck

Thanks for the opinions. I appreciate it. The paver is battling the flu (hopefully not swine) so he hasn't been able to get the driveways done yet.

It's nice to have a place like this to get other opinions. I was expecting a few "tree fiddys" though.

Vinny

Sorry if I ranted Upchuck. I've been having one bad hair day after another.

OK, I cant resist. A buck three eighty.

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Roccies Asphalt Paving
The Right Way Driveway Company
If you say you cant, your a loser. If you say you wont, your a quiter. Which one do you want to be?

tgeb

He deserved it!

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Tom

www.gebcon.com

az dirt mover

I agree with TERM101. You not only have the asphalt cost, what about the labor costs, the paver operator, rakers ? There's also a mobilization cost, just to 'move' the paver to and from the jobsite. And of course 'mark-up', no one's in it for free.