Bidding Process -- How Detailed Are You?

Dominion

Hi group,

When you are invited to bid, what kind of details do you include in your bid?

Examples

1. How detailed is your timeline?
2. How do you break down the phases of a project?
3. How do you break down the costs of the phases of a project?

Real examples would be great for those of you who have done construction from raw land to a finished product.

Lets try to make this a best practices thread -- pros only, chime in!

Daniel

joasis

Too much info is doing groundwork for your competition....raw land to finished home? I quote a number and an estimated time to completion based on the prints and site survey...if we go to contract, then it gets a little more detailed, but not much.

__________________

SelfContract

You sounds very BOSSY!!.. The last sentence where it said -->> pros only, chime in!.... Only the boss with authority can give that order, and everyone professional to come in give him a FULL REPORT of their detailed work for free... C'mon!.... Why should I even I am pro!?

wink

i usually pull up in my beat up rusty old pick-up, with my walmart tools in the back and say i'll do it for 1/2 your lowest bid, oh and by the way can i have $50.00 up front so i can get gas and beer? one more thing, we don't need any permits do we?

Dominion

Haha. Well I came thinking I'd get a little more help than this.

SelfContract, get out of this forum. Your negativity alone probably poisons all your relationships and life in general.

JumboJack

Ok..Here is an idea.YOU go first.You show us how you do it and then we will show you...Sound fair?

__________________
in texas with framing and cornish people will do it for 3.00 a foot. What do yall think about that? Just laber

Selkirk

Since this is in the Commercial Section I assume that you are talking about COMMERCIAL PROJECTS right?

donnag16

You should price each phase seperately and include as much detail as possible for each phase. For example a painter would not only give a price break down for each phase. But would include that wall will receive one coat of primer and two coats of finish. For each item including baseboard, doors and frames. Every detail will give you a edge so that you are not second quessing yourself.

Kaiser

I don't understand why some of you guys are so reluctant to answer questions like this. I thought this is part of what we are doing here.

I had a mason I was working for once tell me " I'm not going to tell you what I know because you will take my Job" What ever happened to teaching the next generation good craftmanship?

Are you afraid this guy is going to move to your town and take your work?

I don't give them any more info tha they ask for. I have had some that want it all down to the last screw. Others are just looking for a total price. I believe some GC"s are wanting you to use your #'s for other bids or projects.

BuiltByMAC

Since you reopened this thread Kaiser, here's your answer.
We aren't reluctant to answer the question, we're not interested in helping a HO w/ attitude price out the bids he's gotten for his project.

Think it through...
Guy makes first post - "help me, help me. This is my specific problem. I need all of you to give me the answers so I know how to browbeat my GCs when they give me a bid. I don't know anything about construction but when someone points that out, I get all pissy and tell them to leave the forum."

Guy only makes posts in his own thread, about his own problem. Gives nothing back to the forum.

Guy disappears soon after being called out, realizing that no one is going do his work for him for free.

No, I'm not worried that he's going to take business away from me. I think he's a pathetic loser who's an info drain on the forum. Why should I bother helping that?

(Since you're a relative newcomer, I'll let you in on a trick. You can click on someone's screen name and choose to see other posts they've made. From that, you can get a feel if they're genuine and worth your time.)

Regarding passing information on to the next generation, a person could search in here for days, never posting once, and learn a H U G E amount about any trade. That's your education, not noobs w/ 'tude demanding answers from the pros! "Best practices" thread, my ass!

Mac

neolitic

Ya think Kaiser picked up on anything?

__________________
Put your location in your profile!
(Sorry....it seems there really are dumb questions)

Kaiser

OK I get it

Jason Whipple

Well, Mr Developer,

I usually take a good look at all the bid documents that are provided by the person requesting the bid. I give a price according to those documents. If I see there might be some things that are not clearly out lined, I go ahead and address them in the bid document.

I'm wondering what prompts this question. Why wouldn't you ask your Architect to do this work? You're not going to have a bunch of Contractors throwing in bids with no scope of work for them to follow are you? Seems to me it would be difficult to pile through all of the paperwork to find differences in what each is bidding or not bidding. You'll have prices for apples and prices for oranges, What good is that?

Add: So how's that for best practices?

__________________
Jason E Whipple, General Manager
Historic House Restoration, Cincinnati, Ohio
Facebook | Twitter

regal

what a wienner