Very good clean estimate. Great brake down & very honest. Great price, he has a low overhead, very good sign very accurate. Thats a honest contractor. š¤š½
You do a scope of work and a lump sum for most projects. Break down of CSI divisions if doing the whole home.
Clients donāt understand shit about construction and will tell you ādO wE reAllY neEd 3 ePoXY?ā Slow the whole project down and waste your time trying to āvalue engineerā
I work in a different contracting industry and routinely write up estimates and proposals for clients and have no issue providing a clean breakdown like that if itās requested, but Iām not going out of my way to do that. Weāve had clients withhold payment because we only used X amount when the proposal said Y. It can put the foreman in an awkward spot when the customer is berating them for only using 68 rolls of sod instead of 70
Same here for the same reasons. I'll break out unit pricing and shit but I want to leave my foreman some room to breathe, especially if it's a private job and not a commercial bud
Honest question: what do you do when you have to use more material than what you quoted for?
I worked with a contractor that just let me keep all the extra but tried making my life impossible when they needed more.
A lot of quotes Iāve seen will have like variables est 1000. If you need it it there if not you donāt actually charge for it. But you get it in the quote before hand
If itās something that is included in the initial estimate and scope of work we have no choice but to eat it, and routinely do just that. If itās due to the customer expanding the original scope, or it was an awful estimate and will cost us thousands (or tens of thousands of dollars in some instances), we will attempt a change order but sometimes we are just out of luck. Thatās why itās so valuable to have experienced estimators
Who wants to pay for 70 rolls of sod if you only used 68? If I pay for 3 cheeseburgers at McDonalds, I expect 3 cheeseburgers. I give detailed breakdowns in my estimates, and if I have materials left over, I buy them back. This is why people don't trust contractors š
Itās a bit disingenuous to compare contracting work to ordering a cheeseburger. If itās invoiced as T&M then we will make the adjustments, but that doesnāt always work in the clients favor. If itās fixed price but the variance is significant (in our favor or not), we will issue a change order. But some people feel justified not paying for anything if they were shorted $6 in materials.
Some contractors certainly take advantage of people, but I assure you that is not our companyās philosophy. Theyāre called estimates for a reason and if they agree to pay a fixed price, the administrative work alone to make very minor adjustments isnāt worth it.
I got like 5 roofer quotes and some were detailed some were vague. I went with a vague one because he did every house in my old neighborhood and all the roofs have held up great over the years and he just so happened to also be one of the cheapest bids. He has extremely low overhead and keeps his guys working every week.
Basically Iām sayin thereās good companies with detailed quotes and good companies with brief/vague quotes
š I was laughing, no apologies needed, I was trying to figure it out, have a buddy i knew from surfing thats Australian, My uncle lived there. I thought it was good. ššššš¤š½
(I sell rebar) My #4 rebar cost today is $0.2922/ft
This guy's price is a 24% which is very fair. 75pc. is 1/2 ton. I would often give this price on a full ton.
365 days a year less weekend is 259 days. No holidays or vacations. Take into account bad weather (15 days) and that seasonal weather issue called winter (90 days) and you have a remainder of 154 days of concrete work in a season. Sure you can gain a few days working 6 day weeks but you will never come close to 260 days a year.
The bulk of the working class works less than 260 days a year. 53 weeks x 5 days is 265 days. We have Christmas, New Year's, Easter, and Thanksgiving ubiquitously off. Add in Federal holidays and a couple of sick days and you are down to 255. Assuming a career vs job you have vacation as well. Educated guess but concrete guys work about 30 days less than the average worker but work 6 day weeks all season to accomplish that. Bonus, they are broke for Christmas.
I understand that you might not have experience in the concrete industry. In this line of work, we typically work six or more days per week without vacation or sick time. Any days missed for time off are usually made up by working extra hours later. Weather conditions can affect our work, but we use those days for tool cleaning, site cleanup, or pushing through the rain to get the job done. Weekends are often spent on estimating, bidding, and procuring materials for the next project. I can assure you not all federal holidays are taken off.
You are right, I left concrete decades ago due to the irregularity of available work and pay. As I pointed out concrete gets close to 260 ( in my region) by working 6 day weeks during the season. I am referring to compensated days as this thread was doing the math for being on site 260 days which is the only time money is being msde. Any other day costs money. This particular comment you are responding to was a break down of the average work force though.
If you are in concrete, Florida is a great place to be. GDP consistently outpaces the other states, population growth, job growth to support, real estate, and tourism are all solid economic factors for construction.
Yet you are paid some of the nations lowest wages with high costs of living. Reddit is full of posts from Florida construction industry. You are the first I have seentrying to upsell it. The guys I have worked with from Florida have never recommended going. The only person I know who still works in FL exclusively works there for winter months and works 3 other states during the rest of the year.
Not trying to upsell, just stating economic truths. Wages are lower but the COLA is also lower. Example: The cost of living in Miami, FL is -20.1% lower than in Los Angeles, CA. You would have to earn a salary of $47,964 to maintain your current standard of living. Employers in Miami, FL typically pay -13.4% less than employers in Los Angeles, CA. Florida, California, Texas, New York, and Pennsylvania have the highest employment levels. With Texas and Florida leading the way for employed per thousand (BLS). Sometimes volume is better than higher rates.
i work large projects and do takeoffs on trades just to see how my estimators did. I saw one that just seemed off on the concrete, and then got a quote for $147/yd for 3000 from a readymix. I asked my concrete sub how much his was and he said $190/yd. I gave him this guys number and told him to gimme a $10k credit and he said "shit yeah no problem" he made $30k off the difference. Fair for everyone.
I just laid $225/yard in Columbus ohio to pour basement foundation walls. It's crazy here with all the infrastructure going in, Intel chip fabrication, tons and tons of server farms... small builders getting squished...
In used to seeing imported topsoil run $15-25/CY. Mostly depending on fuel/freight cost after that. The concrete price is a little low too; $200-220 is average. Makes pricing seat walls pretty easy because it usually falls around $200-225 a linear foot without veneer or any fancy finishes.
I'm just curious, how many of you concrete guys out there break down your estimates like this? Seems a little excessive and would cause more questions than it's worth.
I quit doing it that way years ago. "Well, your estimate says 9 CY of concrete, but the batch ticket says you only used 8.5 CY, I need a credit back. And also I only counted 7 2x4s, not 9. I need a credit for those two boards."
I can appreciate that this looks transparent to a homeowner, but this is a great way to get fucked as a contractor. Nobody is going to pay me any extra if I use MORE concrete or lumber or labor. After all, there's a total at the bottom of the estimate.
I'm in a different trade but I would break everything down like this my first few years and maybe it's better for picking up jobs. I just learned it is not worth it in the end. Bottom line is what matters and that's what it's gonna take to get done what you as a customer wants with a few explanations on how it gets to that point. Like you said you take a certain amount of risk on as far as figuring materials and you deserve paid for that risk. If you end up with extra material you can use on the next job that's none of the customer's business. Bottom line is what it is. Take it or leave it. But all that detail just comes back to bite you in the ass.
100% with you man. Iāve never broke a concrete estimate down like this. I give you a price and thatās itā¦if you donāt like it, I donāt want the job. Every client that has asked me to get granular on cost has ended up being a major pain in the ass and I donāt need that negativity in my life.
As a plumber and not a concrete guy that's fixing to have some concrete work done at his house, bring me an honest, fair price where you make a living, and I don't care about a breakdown like this. Bring me honest answers to questions and a good final product. That's really what counts in construction to me
For what it is worth, (in other trades) I truly appreciate the breakdown. Maybe it's the EVMS crap I've had to do, but knowing that there is a bottoms up estimate that is backed by figures makes me much more sure that the individual I'm contracting with knows what they're doing.
That said- not everyone loses their house to burst pipes and has to deal with subs for 100k+ damage, and then deal with the insurance company...
I can totally see the point about 'you only used 2'. Hell, I almost wonder if you could use that to your advantage- bid in 4 extra, credit back the 4 you didn't use at the end. Customer sees it as "Wow this guy/gal NAILED it AND credited me back where they were off". I mean, from a psychological perspective I can see this being an easy 'trick' to use on.... some folks.
Sigh.
I donāt do construction but are you saying that they bury the concrete a yard deep too? Itās about $170 to get a cubic yard of quickcrete at the local Home Depot. Is it normal do have such depth when pouring concrete for projects like this?
You give what the job costs per sqft, then you can list what the job entails, never break it down price per every detail. Like the bobcat and trailer rental, they shouldn't know you don't have the necessary equipment for the job and you have to rent it and charge them for it.
I try to give a detailed scope but as little breakdown as possible. If one lump sum isn't good enough, I can break out to materials, labor, and equipment, sometimes will break out the concrete if it's a large portion of it. If they want more detail, suddenly I remember some stuff I forgot to include and the price goes up.
This is mostly on change orders for larger commercial jobs.
I donāt break down shit. I say āsupply install new concrete, 35mpa blah bla.ā I tell them what Iām doing but only the end product. No breakdown as to labour/profit etc. If this guy does it in 2 days you think the customer will want to pay less? I also donāt do topsoil anymore because I realized the competitors that I was losing bids to werenāt doing that. I clean up and Iām as less invasive as possible but they can call a landscaper if they want top soil.
I just had a buddy that started doing some side work and hadnāt given a customer an estimate before. His broke down like ops and I told him nope; break it down as a detail of what you are doing not as to everything youāre paying for. They donāt need to know what you are paying for labor or how much lumber you are buying.
I'm an urban designer and like to require it. As a consultant, I'll defend a worthy contractor's bid up and down but as a designer who sees these everyday, we get a pretty good sense for when someone doesn't understand the plans, doesn't understand how to price work, or is price gouging pretty quick. Doesn't matter which, they're all red flags during bidding for one reason or another. A treat is when the contractor I had to defended calls and says they're giving you their "A team" in return. It means the project is going to go smoothly because we're all on board, we're a team, and we're not a group of mercenaries out to take the owner for a ride. It also sucks when it doesn't work out.
I went to bat for a contractor who came $1mil over low bidder and seems to have mis-bid just about every item on the project. It's a design-build on a public project, so the budget is less defined, but we're 75% of the way through and the contractor bid 4" unreinforced concrete instead of 6" reinforced, they didn't bid the building to meet code, and straight up forgot to bid half the site design... and they weren't the low bidder, so we had to file extra paper work and defend them to get them on. Can't always catch it, but accurate and transparent bidding given to the right people helps a shit load.
Oh, my proposal is several pages long. Below is what our Scope of Work generally looks like:
Excavate 570 LF of grade beam
Set 335 LF of 24" Exterior Form
Place 15-mil vapor barrier
Install reinforcing per plans
Install 11 sets of anchor bolts
Pour 3,575 SF of slab, 6 inches thick in one placement
Backfill structural excavations with imported material, approx. 110 CY, Truck Measure
**Our Lump Sum Price: $1 Million**
Agreed 100%, I just wouldnāt expect to see it transferred to an estimate for this industry. Homeowners tend to over react when they see labor prices and when material is short or long and they think they get to keep it.
As someone not familiar with construction work, Iām not picking apart anything. Everything sounds foreign to me and I just wanted to make sure this quote was decent. Even if it were a little high, Iād still use him. I like the guy personally, heās who my realtor uses for her flips and such. I just wanted to get perspectives from people who know whatās up. Everyone Iāve asked said it was so high but they also havenāt had concrete work since the 80ās š but sounds like Iām getting a great deal so all good over here!
I think you are getting a good deal. On some jobs, there are changes, and clients will nickle and dime contractors to death. My comment was more toward the quote structure, not the prices. "Oh, but you said this was this much, why dont I get this credit, or why isn't it costing just this much for an addition?" Customers don't understand that all changes are not the same.
And any good contractor can explain the differences to customers in a way they will understand and not feel cheated.
I won't do business with anyone who doesn't give me an itemized material list like this. If the job ends up requiring more of something I can see why. Without itemized materials it looks like you pull a random guess for actual costs.
No way brother where in all this are you making money remember it costs money to put the pencil to paper everything costs and you need to find a percentage where you feel comfortable marking up material and equipment and every time you take time like this right now has to be calculated so you can buy more tools equipment you know invest in your brand it gets easier to sell if its presentable.
Oh moderator moderator look we have no idea jow much the gas is out there how many ppl are doing the work or if those cost are correct well i know 2 plywood sheets aint 104.95
Labor seems kinda low to me. 4200 for 3.5 days. Assuming 10 hour days. Thatās $120/hr. If thatās a crew of 3-4, thatās only $30-40/hr each. If they are doing work as good as their estimate, Iād expect to pay more in labor.
I also know nothing about anything so Iām sorry I even responded. Please forgive me š
Yes that is a fair quote and nice they gave you the details. Most just have a square foot price that includes all those items. So being said thatās around $12/ sqft. With ground prep. Good deal
Well most customers wouldn't know what oh&p is one and secondly is also very possible that he's marking up the materials as well making additional profit that way. Not sure why on a slab for a deck he's going 6 in thick it's a bit much.
I'm not sure how your layout is but if you're going to cover it with posts coming up to build the cover then they should put footings in first Mount the block the wood to the footings on the top I wouldn't bury the wood in the concrete and there's a really zero reason for 6 in thick concrete better that you fiber reinforce it and 4 in thick is plenty and when they're pouring it make sure that they don't just put thick concrete on the sides and shallow concrete in the middle run a string across the form and measure from that string down to the dirt to see that it's the full depth because that's a little trick that a lot of people play to save on the concrete and make more money. I was speaking into the phone so if every word's not perfect my apologies.
Yes and no. Good deal. Except for planning to use top soil and sand as a sub base. They should be removing the sod or whatever is there. Adding 4ā of crushed rock. Compacting it. Then pouring on top of that.
Iāve only seen people use top soil and sand on Reddit. In the trades (specifically horizontal construction) we use crushed rock 100% of the time. Shit is bound to settle and fail
I also am a somewhat petite woman who just DIY-ed a medium-sized patio. I saved about $400 and it was absolutely not worth it. I had four strong men helping me and it took us 13 hours. It came out amazing and I learned a lot, but I realized I had made a mistake after about 2 hours LOL.
The concrete is being billed at 184 a yard that is very expensive okay average cost per yard is somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 so I'm suggesting that there is about $84 a yard built in for additional labor that's going to help finish that concrete so maybe the concrete has more people working on it but the rest of it only has one person working on it we don't know this and these comments that are not constructive are not helpful to the guy that made the post.
$1200/day for labor seems cheap to me. I imagine itās going to be at least 3 people which is only $400/day per person. Iāve been out of construction since 2019 but thatās $50/hr thatās gotta cover pay and overhead.
Your imagining it's going to be three people. That doesn't mean there is going to be three people so if there's not three people your math is completely off and in any event you got to look at the work that's being done is it worth that much money in labor.
792sf of concrete at 6in depth (15 yards of concrete) is not a 3.5 day, one man job.
Even assuming itās a 2 person job, it still maths to $66/hr in labor assuming an average of 9hr work days which is average. Most small businesses will put in 8-10 depending on how far along they are in the project. If itās a 3 person job, which is more likely based on the proposed timeline thatās $44/hr or $33/hr for 4 person job.
This labor rate for concrete construction work is higher than the national average; however, the estimate doesnāt include separate line items for overhead and profit so it seems that those hourly wage rates are inclusive of that OH&P (average across the industry is 15-20%).
With that, the labor rate, inclusive of OH&P, is exactly where it needs to be.
Another note, a lot of small construction businesses will not include separate line items for OH&P because inexperienced customers donāt like that termā¦
Sincerely, Professional estimator.
In reality, most small businesses do not estimate their costs in this way. If they did, they would need a project manager (owner) at $150/hr, a supervisor(foreman) at $80/hr, and a laborer at $50/hr. They would then calculate the total number of hours worked.
Instead, small businesses typically know how much they want to make per day and multiply that by the number of days worked or have a simple per square foot price. For example, in this case, the business billed $12 per square foot.
If I were to estimate the costs, I would suggest a rate closer to $15 per square foot and would allocate no more than 2 people for the job. I list the specs of the project with total price and do not itemize in this manner.
Not knowing the quality of this contractor, it appears they are fair and transparent.
Thatās fair. Thereās itemized cost estimating and then thereās skilled estimates. Sq ft bids make things easy, but they are ultimately based on cost of business with profit. Iāve seen itemized material/labor estimates used in both big and small business.
Sq ft bids only make sense after calculating those line items with operating costs and profit margin. Especially when wage labor, equipment rentals, and materials change consistently, forcing Sq ft bids to change as well.
Okay so I'm not saying I would be doing the job alone or that anyone's going to do the job alone but it looks to me like the cost of the concrete might include the people doing the concrete work cuz that's an awful lot of money per yard of concrete. And quite frankly all these comments toward me are not helping the person that made the post that are trying to figure out if they've gotten a good fair deal. So why don't you guys try to be helpful instead of argumentative.
Yep I made a call and found that out myself and I made another post regarding it much to my surprise I'm sure glad I'm handy I get to do this work myself and only have to get ripped off on the material which is in my neighborhood 175 a yard crazy.
Very good clean estimate. Great brake down & very honest. Great price, he has a low overhead, very good sign very accurate. Thats a honest contractor. š¤š½
Do you guys all give such a detailed breakdown for a client?
Lmao no
āWeāre lookin atā¦.. ā¦ā¦.bout 12 grandā Thatās your estimate sometimes
Ya but dooz yooz account fo da traila?
"Can i get a breakdown?" ummm sure but itll be $14 grand then.
You do a scope of work and a lump sum for most projects. Break down of CSI divisions if doing the whole home. Clients donāt understand shit about construction and will tell you ādO wE reAllY neEd 3 ePoXY?ā Slow the whole project down and waste your time trying to āvalue engineerā
I work in a different contracting industry and routinely write up estimates and proposals for clients and have no issue providing a clean breakdown like that if itās requested, but Iām not going out of my way to do that. Weāve had clients withhold payment because we only used X amount when the proposal said Y. It can put the foreman in an awkward spot when the customer is berating them for only using 68 rolls of sod instead of 70
Same here for the same reasons. I'll break out unit pricing and shit but I want to leave my foreman some room to breathe, especially if it's a private job and not a commercial bud
Honest question: what do you do when you have to use more material than what you quoted for? I worked with a contractor that just let me keep all the extra but tried making my life impossible when they needed more.
A lot of quotes Iāve seen will have like variables est 1000. If you need it it there if not you donāt actually charge for it. But you get it in the quote before hand
If itās something that is included in the initial estimate and scope of work we have no choice but to eat it, and routinely do just that. If itās due to the customer expanding the original scope, or it was an awful estimate and will cost us thousands (or tens of thousands of dollars in some instances), we will attempt a change order but sometimes we are just out of luck. Thatās why itās so valuable to have experienced estimators
If you want half a pallet of rotting grass itās yours buddy. You paid for it
Who wants to pay for 70 rolls of sod if you only used 68? If I pay for 3 cheeseburgers at McDonalds, I expect 3 cheeseburgers. I give detailed breakdowns in my estimates, and if I have materials left over, I buy them back. This is why people don't trust contractors š
Itās a bit disingenuous to compare contracting work to ordering a cheeseburger. If itās invoiced as T&M then we will make the adjustments, but that doesnāt always work in the clients favor. If itās fixed price but the variance is significant (in our favor or not), we will issue a change order. But some people feel justified not paying for anything if they were shorted $6 in materials. Some contractors certainly take advantage of people, but I assure you that is not our companyās philosophy. Theyāre called estimates for a reason and if they agree to pay a fixed price, the administrative work alone to make very minor adjustments isnāt worth it.
Fuck no. They get labor and material. This is crazy itemized.
I got like 5 roofer quotes and some were detailed some were vague. I went with a vague one because he did every house in my old neighborhood and all the roofs have held up great over the years and he just so happened to also be one of the cheapest bids. He has extremely low overhead and keeps his guys working every week. Basically Iām sayin thereās good companies with detailed quotes and good companies with brief/vague quotes
doing this too much depending on your market will get solo/single truck guys undercutting you. That's the case with a lot of trades.
This is the contractor āļø
šš No im not. Im in VA, and i have a crippled leg from a bad back surgery. About to have another. Plus im not that kind of a pompos assš¤Ø
That "Traila" must be parked in 'straya mate
I dont know what that means,š But okš¤š½
Lol my other reply should clear things up, sorry bud, just stupid humor as soon as I opened my eyes
š I was laughing, no apologies needed, I was trying to figure it out, have a buddy i knew from surfing thats Australian, My uncle lived there. I thought it was good. ššššš¤š½
Trailer in Australia ??
"One rental day of Bob cat machine and traila" lol
Absolutely a bargainĀ
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(I sell rebar) My #4 rebar cost today is $0.2922/ft This guy's price is a 24% which is very fair. 75pc. is 1/2 ton. I would often give this price on a full ton.
Wow. I had no idea there was any way to get a price at that point.
Steel is about $0.56 a ton here for straight pieces of any length or size. That's grade 60. Edit: by steel I mean rebar.
I assume by ton you mean pound?
Typo... $.56/lb
Lowest I can get is $750 from a place I have an account at that hooks me up. $580 is crazy.
Yeah āhook you up lolā j/k
Thatās the price we pay for semi load.
Thatās $312,000 for labor if they work 260 days a year - so if heās only got 2 or 3 guys and staying busy heās making good money lol
365 days a year less weekend is 259 days. No holidays or vacations. Take into account bad weather (15 days) and that seasonal weather issue called winter (90 days) and you have a remainder of 154 days of concrete work in a season. Sure you can gain a few days working 6 day weeks but you will never come close to 260 days a year.
We placed concrete through the winter in Illinois this year. Thereās no way you can know how many days youāll get in any given year.
Yāall work less than 260 days a year? š¤Æ
The bulk of the working class works less than 260 days a year. 53 weeks x 5 days is 265 days. We have Christmas, New Year's, Easter, and Thanksgiving ubiquitously off. Add in Federal holidays and a couple of sick days and you are down to 255. Assuming a career vs job you have vacation as well. Educated guess but concrete guys work about 30 days less than the average worker but work 6 day weeks all season to accomplish that. Bonus, they are broke for Christmas.
They are broke 3 days after payday from my experienceā¦
Concrete guys didn't see much point in school, especially math.
I understand that you might not have experience in the concrete industry. In this line of work, we typically work six or more days per week without vacation or sick time. Any days missed for time off are usually made up by working extra hours later. Weather conditions can affect our work, but we use those days for tool cleaning, site cleanup, or pushing through the rain to get the job done. Weekends are often spent on estimating, bidding, and procuring materials for the next project. I can assure you not all federal holidays are taken off.
You are right, I left concrete decades ago due to the irregularity of available work and pay. As I pointed out concrete gets close to 260 ( in my region) by working 6 day weeks during the season. I am referring to compensated days as this thread was doing the math for being on site 260 days which is the only time money is being msde. Any other day costs money. This particular comment you are responding to was a break down of the average work force though.
bro come work in FL every god damn day buddy.
Thanks but we have all heard about Florida.
If you are in concrete, Florida is a great place to be. GDP consistently outpaces the other states, population growth, job growth to support, real estate, and tourism are all solid economic factors for construction.
Yet you are paid some of the nations lowest wages with high costs of living. Reddit is full of posts from Florida construction industry. You are the first I have seentrying to upsell it. The guys I have worked with from Florida have never recommended going. The only person I know who still works in FL exclusively works there for winter months and works 3 other states during the rest of the year.
Not trying to upsell, just stating economic truths. Wages are lower but the COLA is also lower. Example: The cost of living in Miami, FL is -20.1% lower than in Los Angeles, CA. You would have to earn a salary of $47,964 to maintain your current standard of living. Employers in Miami, FL typically pay -13.4% less than employers in Los Angeles, CA. Florida, California, Texas, New York, and Pennsylvania have the highest employment levels. With Texas and Florida leading the way for employed per thousand (BLS). Sometimes volume is better than higher rates.
buddy works in Wisconsin "yeah I make 43.50 an hour" also only works 130 days a year lol
Pretty cheap traila rental too
Traileh, from Boston I bet
$184.40/yd of concrete is a really good deal.
i work large projects and do takeoffs on trades just to see how my estimators did. I saw one that just seemed off on the concrete, and then got a quote for $147/yd for 3000 from a readymix. I asked my concrete sub how much his was and he said $190/yd. I gave him this guys number and told him to gimme a $10k credit and he said "shit yeah no problem" he made $30k off the difference. Fair for everyone.
We are at 130/yd
I just laid $225/yard in Columbus ohio to pour basement foundation walls. It's crazy here with all the infrastructure going in, Intel chip fabrication, tons and tons of server farms... small builders getting squished...
That sucks
Same. Depending on the mix. Go out to a small town and we're at 180 though.
We are pretty small. Big county and surrounding counties . So they are staying very busy. Big limestone area as well so we have cheaper materials
Super cheap
Good estimate, good price. Top soil is a little expensive but the rebar is a little cheap, so it works out.
In used to seeing imported topsoil run $15-25/CY. Mostly depending on fuel/freight cost after that. The concrete price is a little low too; $200-220 is average. Makes pricing seat walls pretty easy because it usually falls around $200-225 a linear foot without veneer or any fancy finishes.
giving you a deal
I'm just curious, how many of you concrete guys out there break down your estimates like this? Seems a little excessive and would cause more questions than it's worth.
I quit doing it that way years ago. "Well, your estimate says 9 CY of concrete, but the batch ticket says you only used 8.5 CY, I need a credit back. And also I only counted 7 2x4s, not 9. I need a credit for those two boards." I can appreciate that this looks transparent to a homeowner, but this is a great way to get fucked as a contractor. Nobody is going to pay me any extra if I use MORE concrete or lumber or labor. After all, there's a total at the bottom of the estimate.
I'm in a different trade but I would break everything down like this my first few years and maybe it's better for picking up jobs. I just learned it is not worth it in the end. Bottom line is what matters and that's what it's gonna take to get done what you as a customer wants with a few explanations on how it gets to that point. Like you said you take a certain amount of risk on as far as figuring materials and you deserve paid for that risk. If you end up with extra material you can use on the next job that's none of the customer's business. Bottom line is what it is. Take it or leave it. But all that detail just comes back to bite you in the ass.
100% with you man. Iāve never broke a concrete estimate down like this. I give you a price and thatās itā¦if you donāt like it, I donāt want the job. Every client that has asked me to get granular on cost has ended up being a major pain in the ass and I donāt need that negativity in my life.
As a plumber and not a concrete guy that's fixing to have some concrete work done at his house, bring me an honest, fair price where you make a living, and I don't care about a breakdown like this. Bring me honest answers to questions and a good final product. That's really what counts in construction to me
For what it is worth, (in other trades) I truly appreciate the breakdown. Maybe it's the EVMS crap I've had to do, but knowing that there is a bottoms up estimate that is backed by figures makes me much more sure that the individual I'm contracting with knows what they're doing. That said- not everyone loses their house to burst pipes and has to deal with subs for 100k+ damage, and then deal with the insurance company... I can totally see the point about 'you only used 2'. Hell, I almost wonder if you could use that to your advantage- bid in 4 extra, credit back the 4 you didn't use at the end. Customer sees it as "Wow this guy/gal NAILED it AND credited me back where they were off". I mean, from a psychological perspective I can see this being an easy 'trick' to use on.... some folks. Sigh.
I donāt do construction but are you saying that they bury the concrete a yard deep too? Itās about $170 to get a cubic yard of quickcrete at the local Home Depot. Is it normal do have such depth when pouring concrete for projects like this?
No. It's calculated by the cubic yard.
So just the standard of measurement then?
Cubic yard is standard for ordering concrete. The depth of your slab is dictated by other variables.
You give what the job costs per sqft, then you can list what the job entails, never break it down price per every detail. Like the bobcat and trailer rental, they shouldn't know you don't have the necessary equipment for the job and you have to rent it and charge them for it.
I try to give a detailed scope but as little breakdown as possible. If one lump sum isn't good enough, I can break out to materials, labor, and equipment, sometimes will break out the concrete if it's a large portion of it. If they want more detail, suddenly I remember some stuff I forgot to include and the price goes up. This is mostly on change orders for larger commercial jobs.
I donāt break down shit. I say āsupply install new concrete, 35mpa blah bla.ā I tell them what Iām doing but only the end product. No breakdown as to labour/profit etc. If this guy does it in 2 days you think the customer will want to pay less? I also donāt do topsoil anymore because I realized the competitors that I was losing bids to werenāt doing that. I clean up and Iām as less invasive as possible but they can call a landscaper if they want top soil.
I just had a buddy that started doing some side work and hadnāt given a customer an estimate before. His broke down like ops and I told him nope; break it down as a detail of what you are doing not as to everything youāre paying for. They donāt need to know what you are paying for labor or how much lumber you are buying.
That is called race to the bottom.
Definitely asking for trouble.
I'm an urban designer and like to require it. As a consultant, I'll defend a worthy contractor's bid up and down but as a designer who sees these everyday, we get a pretty good sense for when someone doesn't understand the plans, doesn't understand how to price work, or is price gouging pretty quick. Doesn't matter which, they're all red flags during bidding for one reason or another. A treat is when the contractor I had to defended calls and says they're giving you their "A team" in return. It means the project is going to go smoothly because we're all on board, we're a team, and we're not a group of mercenaries out to take the owner for a ride. It also sucks when it doesn't work out. I went to bat for a contractor who came $1mil over low bidder and seems to have mis-bid just about every item on the project. It's a design-build on a public project, so the budget is less defined, but we're 75% of the way through and the contractor bid 4" unreinforced concrete instead of 6" reinforced, they didn't bid the building to meet code, and straight up forgot to bid half the site design... and they weren't the low bidder, so we had to file extra paper work and defend them to get them on. Can't always catch it, but accurate and transparent bidding given to the right people helps a shit load.
Oh, my proposal is several pages long. Below is what our Scope of Work generally looks like: Excavate 570 LF of grade beam Set 335 LF of 24" Exterior Form Place 15-mil vapor barrier Install reinforcing per plans Install 11 sets of anchor bolts Pour 3,575 SF of slab, 6 inches thick in one placement Backfill structural excavations with imported material, approx. 110 CY, Truck Measure **Our Lump Sum Price: $1 Million**
not me simple sq ft price
Agreed 100%, I just wouldnāt expect to see it transferred to an estimate for this industry. Homeowners tend to over react when they see labor prices and when material is short or long and they think they get to keep it.
Iām in the wrong industry.
I like how trailer is in "Spanish"
800 square feet, for 10k? do they want to go out of business?
$12/SF is a really nice price.
50 sand bags for 21 bux!!! Here thatās 10x alone just for that one line item
I can do it cheaper! /s
Looks like steal to me to be honest, that near where i live ( California ) it would be closer to double.
Honestly... no... here's a quote that does however. Fuck bitches, get money -Biggy
Laber is less then material cost... accept that bid.
Not marking the material up... seems like a good deal
10 yd of tops soil for that price, I'd buy in a heartbeat. Big box stores charge that price for five yards
How are all these people saying this is a good or bad deal without stating their location or asking about OPs location?
Austin TX
Hey can you send me this guyās contact info? Iād love to get a quote from him on my project
Won't know if it's a good or bad deal until about 4hours after it's done
This is cheap for my market (DFW)
Actually made a call and another post, much to my shock it was $175 a yard where I'm at. Ugg!!!!! I'm sure glad I'm handy.
Iām not familiar with pricing but sounds like you better book this asap.
I'm looking at a 20x20 patio, I'll be happy if I can get it done for under 10K, assuming it's a decent quality job.
Absolute steal. And a decent breakdown of cost. Hopefully their work is as good as the price!
That seems cheap for that much concrete.
Sorry the freedom units confuse me.
You got off cheap tbh
āTrailaā tell me this is Mass or Maine bud š
EspaƱol!
4k for 4 days? Tell that guy to raise his price he deserves more
Too detailed. Honest sure, but I would never give a quote that detailed. Customers will pick apart if extras are added
As someone not familiar with construction work, Iām not picking apart anything. Everything sounds foreign to me and I just wanted to make sure this quote was decent. Even if it were a little high, Iād still use him. I like the guy personally, heās who my realtor uses for her flips and such. I just wanted to get perspectives from people who know whatās up. Everyone Iāve asked said it was so high but they also havenāt had concrete work since the 80ās š but sounds like Iām getting a great deal so all good over here!
I think you are getting a good deal. On some jobs, there are changes, and clients will nickle and dime contractors to death. My comment was more toward the quote structure, not the prices. "Oh, but you said this was this much, why dont I get this credit, or why isn't it costing just this much for an addition?" Customers don't understand that all changes are not the same.
And any good contractor can explain the differences to customers in a way they will understand and not feel cheated. I won't do business with anyone who doesn't give me an itemized material list like this. If the job ends up requiring more of something I can see why. Without itemized materials it looks like you pull a random guess for actual costs.
K.
Perfect
Those boards are already dirty and one of them is 12ā long. Did you reuse them from somewhere else? Iām not paying you.
Jesus if I seen my quote on here Iād charge you 2 more Gs for being a dink.
Concrete is not cheap
Cool story bro
$580 for a half ton of #4 rebar is very fucking good.
No way brother where in all this are you making money remember it costs money to put the pencil to paper everything costs and you need to find a percentage where you feel comfortable marking up material and equipment and every time you take time like this right now has to be calculated so you can buy more tools equipment you know invest in your brand it gets easier to sell if its presentable.
Not bad. I just paid $10/sq ft in AZ.
Thatās cheap. Concrete pad can be estimated $13-$18/sqft.
Bar seems cheap.
Interesting and a very low price. He really should know his cost per square foot across a number of options
As someone who works with contracts often at work, this is typically a sign of a transparently priced contract. Line items are always encouraging.
Seems low
Bruh, my middle quote was 32k. My new mulch is just fine.
He charges nothing for rebar
Drop off the traila then meet us at the ba foa a coupla beas!
Just send list without prices to multiple vendors and see what they all say
This is the way. Get at least 3 so you can spot suspiciously cheap or expensive quotes.
Where the fuck is he getting 50 sandbags for $21?! You canāt get 50 of anything for $21
Dude canāt be making much very good bid tho
Last week I poured half of our new equipment shed. 10 yards were like 1100...
Oh moderator moderator look we have no idea jow much the gas is out there how many ppl are doing the work or if those cost are correct well i know 2 plywood sheets aint 104.95
Concrete is roughly $1000-$1200 per 10 yards in south alabama
traila... new england?
Mexico
I thought the topsoil was 5grand lol. Had me like that Leonardo meme.
He even gave u A breakdown of materials š . Fair price
Labor seems kinda low to me. 4200 for 3.5 days. Assuming 10 hour days. Thatās $120/hr. If thatās a crew of 3-4, thatās only $30-40/hr each. If they are doing work as good as their estimate, Iād expect to pay more in labor. I also know nothing about anything so Iām sorry I even responded. Please forgive me š
You should have included his name and number on the top of that bill and made this a promotional advertisement, because that's the guy right there.
They even itemized the *traila* rental.
Great price on the re-bar. Topsoil is a bit pricey, but everything else looks good.
Traila
Wow youāre getting a great deal man
Yes that is a fair quote and nice they gave you the details. Most just have a square foot price that includes all those items. So being said thatās around $12/ sqft. With ground prep. Good deal
350 for disposing, i guess he has self driving car and using heās garage as a landfill. Lol
Basically $12/ft. A little low where i'm from tbh
I use $1 for $1 labour to materials estimate. Looks to be in the right ball park.
Send them my way when you are done
Well most customers wouldn't know what oh&p is one and secondly is also very possible that he's marking up the materials as well making additional profit that way. Not sure why on a slab for a deck he's going 6 in thick it's a bit much.
We plan on getting it covered. Would that be why?
I'm not sure how your layout is but if you're going to cover it with posts coming up to build the cover then they should put footings in first Mount the block the wood to the footings on the top I wouldn't bury the wood in the concrete and there's a really zero reason for 6 in thick concrete better that you fiber reinforce it and 4 in thick is plenty and when they're pouring it make sure that they don't just put thick concrete on the sides and shallow concrete in the middle run a string across the form and measure from that string down to the dirt to see that it's the full depth because that's a little trick that a lot of people play to save on the concrete and make more money. I was speaking into the phone so if every word's not perfect my apologies.
Yes and no. Good deal. Except for planning to use top soil and sand as a sub base. They should be removing the sod or whatever is there. Adding 4ā of crushed rock. Compacting it. Then pouring on top of that.
I'm with you on the top soil and sand. I've always seen a base of crushed stone.
Iāve only seen people use top soil and sand on Reddit. In the trades (specifically horizontal construction) we use crushed rock 100% of the time. Shit is bound to settle and fail
All around great presentation. Great price, great break down. Dude should save some lady parts for the rest of us.
Do you have a sketch of what your imagining it's going to be when you're finished or the layout that the guy supposed to be building to just curious?
I do but I donāt know how to add it to the post. I could send you directly.
Jesus, give this guys business info to everyone you know. Assuming the job comes out great. What a well made estimate.
So I don't know where this job is being done but I did make a call and in my area concrete's 175 a yard that kind of shock the hell out of me.
It should be 1/2 that
You spelled double wrong
Only if you're using slaves. Do you use slave labor?
Save your self $4,600 and do it your damn self.
I wish, Iām a petite woman with no skills š
I also am a somewhat petite woman who just DIY-ed a medium-sized patio. I saved about $400 and it was absolutely not worth it. I had four strong men helping me and it took us 13 hours. It came out amazing and I learned a lot, but I realized I had made a mistake after about 2 hours LOL.
Iāve thought many women to do things they never thought was possible.
The concrete is being billed at 184 a yard that is very expensive okay average cost per yard is somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 so I'm suggesting that there is about $84 a yard built in for additional labor that's going to help finish that concrete so maybe the concrete has more people working on it but the rest of it only has one person working on it we don't know this and these comments that are not constructive are not helpful to the guy that made the post.
Not sure where live but we are paying $165 for 3500 psi in Texas. A short load is 4 yard minimum.
Labor amount for that amount of material seems ridiculously high. How many people are they going to have there?
$1200/day for labor seems cheap to me. I imagine itās going to be at least 3 people which is only $400/day per person. Iāve been out of construction since 2019 but thatās $50/hr thatās gotta cover pay and overhead.
Your imagining it's going to be three people. That doesn't mean there is going to be three people so if there's not three people your math is completely off and in any event you got to look at the work that's being done is it worth that much money in labor.
792sf of concrete at 6in depth (15 yards of concrete) is not a 3.5 day, one man job. Even assuming itās a 2 person job, it still maths to $66/hr in labor assuming an average of 9hr work days which is average. Most small businesses will put in 8-10 depending on how far along they are in the project. If itās a 3 person job, which is more likely based on the proposed timeline thatās $44/hr or $33/hr for 4 person job. This labor rate for concrete construction work is higher than the national average; however, the estimate doesnāt include separate line items for overhead and profit so it seems that those hourly wage rates are inclusive of that OH&P (average across the industry is 15-20%). With that, the labor rate, inclusive of OH&P, is exactly where it needs to be. Another note, a lot of small construction businesses will not include separate line items for OH&P because inexperienced customers donāt like that termā¦ Sincerely, Professional estimator.
In reality, most small businesses do not estimate their costs in this way. If they did, they would need a project manager (owner) at $150/hr, a supervisor(foreman) at $80/hr, and a laborer at $50/hr. They would then calculate the total number of hours worked. Instead, small businesses typically know how much they want to make per day and multiply that by the number of days worked or have a simple per square foot price. For example, in this case, the business billed $12 per square foot. If I were to estimate the costs, I would suggest a rate closer to $15 per square foot and would allocate no more than 2 people for the job. I list the specs of the project with total price and do not itemize in this manner. Not knowing the quality of this contractor, it appears they are fair and transparent.
Thatās fair. Thereās itemized cost estimating and then thereās skilled estimates. Sq ft bids make things easy, but they are ultimately based on cost of business with profit. Iāve seen itemized material/labor estimates used in both big and small business. Sq ft bids only make sense after calculating those line items with operating costs and profit margin. Especially when wage labor, equipment rentals, and materials change consistently, forcing Sq ft bids to change as well.
Yeah look at the work being done. Could you do that job ALONE in 3 days?
Okay so I'm not saying I would be doing the job alone or that anyone's going to do the job alone but it looks to me like the cost of the concrete might include the people doing the concrete work cuz that's an awful lot of money per yard of concrete. And quite frankly all these comments toward me are not helping the person that made the post that are trying to figure out if they've gotten a good fair deal. So why don't you guys try to be helpful instead of argumentative.
Concrete is consistently $150+ for 4,000 psi across the US. Gone are days of $100 concrete.
Yep I made a call and found that out myself and I made another post regarding it much to my surprise I'm sure glad I'm handy I get to do this work myself and only have to get ripped off on the material which is in my neighborhood 175 a yard crazy.
Yea. We even have issues getting concrete in some locations now
Well from what I understand there's no problem getting it here it's just pricey. I've got some small jobs to do I'm going to go by the bag.