BIDDING A JOB DEFINED- by Cody

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

BIDDING A JOB DEFINED-

Bidding any cleaning has tons of variables. Following are a few of your fixed variables there are more than this this is just to give you an idea of what goes into a price

Area Demographics

Competition

Water Recovery issues

Overhead

Payroll differs with areas, standard pay in backwoods Tennessee is not going to be the same as Downtown NY thus payroll reflects greatly on the end price.

Real Estate prices, Rent

Workers Comp

Insurance

Fuel Prices

etc

These are just a "FEW" of the items that go into a price. Grant it, some are less dramatic than the other but, on a job of this size they play in.

When pricing there are several critical job variables to consider. These are all dramatic when considering the price since these variables change from job to job.

Gum? Lots of gum = lots of time

Mildew? Heavy mildew can take more time to clean

Estimate last time cleaned? The longer it’s been since it was last cleaned, the longer it’s going to take to clean it this time.

Obstacles? Columns, Planters ((Plants can really hurt buy causing you to try & not blow out all the bark ground covering

Water availability? If there is only 1 working spigot on the premises, it’s not going to go well. I adjust my price to water availability, if there isn’t an ample water source within every 1,000Lft I charge a little more.

Hours of operation? Movie theaters, restaurants, & bars can inhibit your working hours. Working around these places can be time consuming & sometimes this needs to be calculated into your pricing since it can add up several hours to a job trying to work around these open & often busy establishments

Location of property? Is the property near a residential area. If so you could find your hours of operation even more limited. I was run off by the cops more than once in my early days for breaking noise ordinances near residential areas, and was levied a $250 fine for it once.

Concrete type / condition? Fibermesh can be slower to clean than standard crete. Reason is that fibermesh is softer than standard thus you will need to drop pressure &/or increase technique or you'll stripe the it. In addition gum removal takes more finesse since the concrete is softer. Rookie gum removal can cause divots, so cleaning & gum removal takes more time & time = $$. There are other concrete variables too general hardness, age the older the pour the harder the crete usually, porousness,

Curb FaceWill you need to clean it? 9,800 lft of curb face cleaning could add hours to the job if it's bad. Can make rinse harder too if where the curb face hits the tarmack there is a space. In that space is a boatload of dirt dying to come out & into your face. This dirt may need to be rinsed away across the driving area (especially if it's sealcoated)

Is the parking lot Sealcoated? If the parking lot has a nice fresh looking "super" BLACK sealcoating on it, it can add on half again the time it takes to do the job for you will need to fully rinse AT LEAST the driving lane across to the parking area or it will leave a nasty white residue on the area. And if you do not do this you will quite possibly find yourself back at the place using your surface cleaner on the entire drive thru area & possibly more!!

The dimensions of the 98,000 sqft.? If it’s 9,800 ft long by 10ft wide it will go quicker than if it’s 4,900ft long by 20ft wide. Reason,, the rinse

With the 100,000 sqft part I am guessing that this is probably parking area thus it’s probably a large wide area, or multiple areas, in any event it’s going to be big areas, 100, 200 feet square or wide. Areas like this take forever to clean, the rinsing will kill ya.

There it is in a nutshell, nearly all you need to know to price this job!

Asking someone here for a DOLLAR amount for this job & using as they say would be like asking someone you don't know for investment advice & then using it. It'd be dumb. I could tell you to dump all your money into XYZ company, when I don't know jack about XYZ company & they may go under anyday, thus you'd lose your money. I would love little more than to be able to give you a lowball price for this & to have you win the job, just to get completely screwed by the job thus teaching you a very valuable lesson. The only thing that keeps me from doing this is that the action could cost another viable contractor the job!

In short, Learn to walk before you try & run.

"IF you can't price it you shouldn't be doing it"

Start small, small jobs are easy to bid, there is plenty of room to screw up. From small jobs, work your way up, you'll learn as you go what to watch out for & how long what takes. In time you will acquire the knowledge to bid this job, it will be when you are ready for it.

This job, as good as it may look to you in that you could get this great big contract, probably holds nothing but doom for you. I am a very experienced contractor & the job you are looking at is what I do. I would scrutinize the hell out of it. Keep in mind here .005cent (1/2cent) = $1,000 on a job like this, thus it'll be REAL easy to screw it up. 1 PENNY off could be the difference between making money & losing money on it if you don't look at it right!!!!!

Cody.

P.S. ALWAYS price by the SQUARE FOOT & NOT BY THE HOUR - Hence the reason I say -"If you can't price it, you shouldn't be doing it. Some people use an hourly rate to figure pricing, this is simply wrong. If you have experience in doing the jobs then you will know how many square feet you can clean per hour, sort of like Scott said. However the problem with Scotts analogy Not against Scott here, just making a point is that before you go guessing how many sqft you can do per hour on a job like this, you best DAMN WELL KNOW what you can do or it'll bite ya! If you know how many square feet you can do per hour under what conditions then YOU WILL NEVER GO WRONG WITH CHARGING BY THE SQUARE FOOT. Once you find your rate, NEVER drop it to accomadate your increased speed. You will eventually get faster, LIke Scott said, starting out you may get 700ft an hour, one day you will get to 3000ft an hour, this speed increase is your RAISE & your compenstation for the equipment & it's tailoring to your profession. It really pains me when I see guys that drop their rate because they increased their speed, that increased speed is my gravey!

OK, that's it,, I was in a typing mood :)