what jobs are not wroth taking

[CM1995]

There is a larger site work contractor in my area that is always cheap on the bid - hold on to your pants when there is a change order though.

 

[Welder Dave]

Thepumpguysc, That's a classic example of why sometimes you need to call in an expert instead of trying to do it yourself.

 

[thepumpguysc]

"I" wasn't doing anything I didn't know howta do.. it was the poor dirt farmer who jumped on it..
& yes, I agree w/you.. He was "trying" to save some money by pulling the front timing cover off.. had to remove the big hydro pump off the harm. balancer & then the balancer , then the water pump, then the alt, that kept sparking cuz he wouldn't disconnect the battery..
I wouldn't attempted that for nothing.. Like I tell everyone.. "I'M NOT a mechanic".. I'm a FUEL SYSTEMS expert.. SURE I know how to getm off & putm back on, but that was because I was THROWN into it..
MY EXPERTISE lies>> on a workbench in 68* temp..

 

[catwelder]

Depends on how many big contractors are interested in it. We were 7th place last year on the first phase of a 93 million dollar bypass. We were $88000 under the engineer's estimate. Boss figured if everything went perfect he could pocket around $700,000 on $6.8 mill. Worst case, around $350,000. The next closest bid was a little over $5mill, Dexter construction out of Nova Scotia took , sorry bought it for less than $4

4 dollars ? how the hell

 

[catwelder]

There is a larger site work contractor in my area that is always cheap on the bid - hold on to your pants when there is a change order though.

my buddy is a much larger contractor then me classic family been doing its over so many years bla bla but a few months ago he went to bid on a new really small car dealer ship development I think him and everyone was around 5-10k difference but the lowest bidder was about 150k lower the job started 3 months ago and ive heard the guys out of money because he went and bought some new gear before the job started

 

[DMiller]

Cutting one's own throat to get a contract is still corporate death just longer in duration.

 

[ianjoub]

4 dollars ? how the hell

I assumed he meant $4m...

 

[catwelder]

I assumed he meant $4m...

i hope so i might of misread that entirely

 

[Steve Best]

I have not ever figured how those low ball bids work out, unless they have a caveat as to cost Plus extras not included in bid and screw that pooch pretty hard.

I know very well.
You bid to the exact dollar of the job and have a clause for any extras. Then you have your site supervisor record each and every overage. Time waiting for a crew to finish, time waiting for a cement truck, time waiting for parts to arrive, time for changes and client's mistakes. You have a hefty hourly rate for each man involved. Of course you don't have a 12 man crew standing around waiting for parts to arrive, they are all trained to jump ahead on the job. All these overages mean overtime for the guys and we will still finish on time and on budget, plus overages of course. Not unusual to see overages at 20% to 50% of the bid.

One of my jobs was to sit down with the client to negotiate the overages. Not hard to do because we recorded times, people and everything else and reported daily, giving our client a chance to improve. They never do, they have their customary way of working and don't like change. You actually do better on a job that is screwed up than a smooth one, as long as you have the right scope and exclusion clauses in the contract.

 

[DMiller]

Still gets to me the 'Officials' accept the Low Ball Bids KNOWING they will end up paying those clause figures spending more. Looks good on paper bad in practice.

 

[HATCHEQUIP]

Depends on how many big contractors are interested in it. We were 7th place last year on the first phase of a 93 million dollar bypass. We were $88000 under the engineer's estimate. Boss figured if everything went perfect he could pocket around $700,000 on $6.8 mill. Worst case, around $350,000. The next closest bid was a little over $5mill, Dexter construction out of Nova Scotia took , sorry bought it for less than $4

Starting to see a lot of design build contracts in GA. an TN. on dot work with a lot of differences in the bids but you cant do a lot of comparing because of different contractors different designs as in the I24 I75 split up here Chattanooga.

 

[Bls repair]

Probably have a law that they have to take the lowest bidder.

 

[AzIron]

Where there is confusion there is money to be made

 

[Welder Dave]

A lot of tenders will say lowest or any bid will not necessarily be accepted. Big jobs the people needing it done will usually have a general idea what it should cost. A long time ago I was working for my neighbor on his first big demolition job. A large gov't. building. Another person who was associated with a general contractor the neighbor had worked with in the past put up the bid bond. The neighbor didn't know him too well. They had the lowest bid which was about $45K lower than the next lowest and over 200K below the highest bid. The gov't. asked them if they wanted to raise their bid before awarding them the contract. The neighbor and his new partner said they could do the job for the bid amount. Job started off OK but then started going downhill. They had a big disagreement. I think part of it was the neighbor was trying to salvage as much as possible for resale and his new partner thought he should be doing the demolition. I was cutting panels open to pull all the copper wiring out. Pay cheques were held back and it took a long time to get paid. I was told not to go back to the job site. Neighbor was kicked off the job. There was some shadiness all around. It ended up in court and was huge mess.

 

[Bls repair]

One of my favorite sayings is “chaos is cash”

 

[cuttin edge]

We just lost a paving job. 4kms of reclaimation with the train, then a top coat of 2 inches of pave. Lost it to the company who's train we were going to use by $800 bucks. Should be a clause for local contractors within a certain amount of money, as they are from the other side of the province. Good for them though

 

[Welder Dave]

Some companies will bid lower just to keep their guys working if things are slow.

 

[Bls repair]

Every contractor I ever worked lost money on the job . Expected to make $500,000.00 but only made $450,000.00 . So they lost $50,000.00 on the job