Job too big?

The opportunity fell in my lap for me to bid on a massive job. The job is building a 20 acre pad with 6" of road base.

When I was with my previous employer, this was my specialty. I estimated and built pads like this like it was nobody's business. Now, I am out on my own with a much smaller crew.

I know how to bid this job but its the logistics that scare the heck out of me.

Clearing the site and spreading the material is childs play. Everything is flat and level. Its hauling in the material that has got me scared.

I need to import roughly 16,000 CY of material from a pit that is 30 miles away. The way I figure it, I could keep 20 trucks running all day for almost 18 days. With an order like this, do you think the pit would run 24 hours a day for me?

The reason I ask is that this job is 600 miles from home and I dont want to keep myself and my crew there for a month.

So far, the highest paying job that I have had on my own is $41,000. Right now, this job is pushing the $300k range.

Am I biting off more than I can chew? Be honest!

congrats on having some work! sounds like a big job, maby contact the pit personaly to set up some sort of contract with them? im sure like every one else work is on the light side so they may be more willing to suit your needs more then you think.

Another thing to consider is do you have the resources to run 24 hours a day? You'll need to crews with an overlap for maintence not to mention if you have the pit running 24/7 for you what happens when your dozer goes down on you at 3am?

I will first off say I have 0 expirence in this, but maybe a few things to think about.

1. As already stated, Contact the pit, maybe have a face to face meeting with someone there about your needs, and if they can fulfill them.

2. Can you get truck drivers to run 24/7?

3. Having a back-up dozer, as well as having a FULL back up plan. And having support if something runs amuck in the middle of the night, can a dealer give 24/7 support? How far away is the nearest machine if you absolutely had to have one?

4. Again as already stated, maintence, FUEL, if you have a few machines running 24/7, you are most likely going to need an on-site fuel container.

5. You can't be there 24/7 yourself, so your going to need someone that is trustworthy to run the site while you can't be there, and have piece of mind that if a truck tips over at 1AM that the site super can handle that, or anything else that might com at him.

6. As you say, your biggest job was a $41,000, this is roughly 7 times that size.

7. Are your trucks going to make a mess of the road leaving the site? That could lead to trouble.

I am sure you have already thought of this stuff but those were a few of the things that first popped into my mind. Good luck!

Numbers? If you use Truck and pup or Belly dumps figure about 18-20 yd / load. 60 mi round trip depending on road conditions and scales to cross probably make 5 trips/ 8 hr. 20 trucks x5 = 100 loads/ day. This depends on how fast they can travel and how long it takes to load. Using 1,25 for swell factor= 20,000 yd it should only take 10 da. Can you spread, water and compact it that fast? Are you using pit run gravel or crushed rock? Probably cost $800-1000/ per day/ truck,$200,000. Cost of material/yd? 20 acres is a lot of area to prepare and finish,871,220 sq ft. Hope you are not using crushed rock or do you have to pay for material? Sounds like a neat straight forward job. Go for it and good luck. PS thats a truck every 4.8 minutes all day long, might be a bit ambitious.

One word; Cashflow.

Move up to the next league if you can, but be careful that slow payers don't send you broke.

Copenhagen the biggest problem of any large job is MONEY, to have enough to fund payroll, fuel, materials and day to day opperations. How long before you get paid? Can you get the customer to pay for a performance bond? with the bond you can go to a bank for bridge loan. Sometimes I built the cost of the bond into the job so I can get the funding. Have a good contract and be very up front with all parties involved to make sure everybody is on the same page. Then just go do what you do. The rest will take care of it's self.

Well, I wont get into much of the office end of this, but your profit margin is generally higher on jobs less than $50,000.

Now to the logistics end. Most of the jobs I have been on, we were close to the material supplier. But we have a project around here that is being handled by several companies. It is about 30 miles from any stone supplier. The company that owns the project contracted with a supplier before the project began. They pay for all the stone, it exclusively comes from that supplier. All contracts state a MINIMUM of 6 inches of stone. Big mistake on their part, but thats a whole other story. So your fighting for trucks. One contractor had a large section of parking lot to do. They set up an area, graded it out, and started stock piling the stone. As they got a section of parking lot graded out the scrapers would go to the pile and grab what they could. It worked out well, as it covered what they had finished, and they didnt have to schedule a lot of trucks. Having ground covered here is a big thing. If you are working in heavy clay, and it rains, your done for days. It also helps them with getting paid. You need money, you go to the project owner and say area xyz are done, we would like our draw for that portion of the project.

They way I would set up your job. Clear and grade your road into the project, and a large portion of parking lot. get this stoned. Now you have a lay down area for other contractors that are going to be coming in behind you. Now do a section of your building pad that will allow the trucks hauling stone enough room to dump for a few days. A couple times a day, have a machine go over and tidy up your stockpile area. Now you dont have to try and find a lot of trucks, you dont have to worry about down time from the trucking company, or the pit. You are covering and finishing large areas of the building pad. Protects you from bad weather. Also, once your stockpile is gone, and youve moved on to the next section, that portion of building pad is ready for the next contractor. The downside is your handling your material twice. But it allows you some protection from things you can not control.

I always figured big jobs have bigger overall profit pontential if bid right but they unfortunately also have a bigger loss potential if under bid

congrats big job, if everything goes in your favor with the pit then I would go for it something else to think about is lighting, you know its a big sight lots of trucks, late nights, tired drivers from working nights safety plays a big role plus your probaly have some laborors so I'd say a few light towers

You dont really have to worry about it ....sub-contract it out with a written and signed aggrement ...
insist on a fleet inspection and referances before any arrangement.....
make sure your take is at least 10-15% ...you wont make all the money but at least you look good when its done ..

I would do it. I do not think the 24 hr a day thing is needed. 20 acres 6" deep is only about 28,000 tons of material. It should be no problem on a 20 acre pad to import 5000 ton per day, in 8 to 10 hrs. I have done it many times. Get in touch with the gravel supplier and see how many trucks they can commit, and what kind of daily tonnage they are capable of. I run out of pits that can ship 10,000 ton a day and not break a sweat, so 5000 ton is no big deal unless it is a really small supplier.

Make sure you can get credit with the supplier untill the job pays you and the $$ should work out OK.

If you need any extra help, and your 600 miles is in a west or southwest direction, I could help out with crew or equipment.
If you need specific help, PM me a message, and I will be glad to help.

No pit is going to put out the much material without some out standing credit!!

Subing it out sounds safe, it would save you transporting a pile of equipment and manpower 600 miles. I think i might sub out the spreading of the material and compaction, but I'd send my best grader hand to make sure that the final grade is purr-fect. With 1200 miles of freighting equipment it might pay to rent a large grader with gps/laser for the final grade.

My opinion is if this job will let you step up to the next level then being away from home for a month in these economic times is a small price to pay. As far as moving your equipment, could you rent it there and still keep a nice profit? The rental companies around here are begging for business, so I would think that prices would be negotiable? We have found a job that is similiar to your situation as far as logistics. We were asked for a price, not really competing on a bid, we set the price up to cover equipment rental, where we only have to take our "specialized equipment", which can be pulled behind the work trucks. Our job should take a month, we discussed working two weeks, coming home for a week, then finishing the job. But our work is entirely different than the work you are doing. But if you pull your guys together and explain that you need to do this and maybe offer something extra (of course just having work now is an extra), and clear it with everyone at home? Will this job take a month with the pit not working 24/7?

it seems running 24/7 might not be the best idea, however for servise if you have cat machines my local cat dealer is open 24/7 for service and is on call.