Mostly asking you guys that have worked for individuals rather than commercial, though it might relate. I have been messing with a few pond/drainage type jobs lately and nearly all of them don't know what they want or need, yet are quick to ask for 'more' when things are nearing completion. It is becoming a broken record. Like I try to spell it out as much as possible in the work order. For instance, I was asked to plug a blowout in pond and spelled out that the plug will be 10ft deep, 30ft long, 15ft wide. I do that, and customer then thinks it needs more. Happens EVERY time! Being the nice guy that I am, I figure I already have the equipment there, just do it, and I have. However, I recall BIG, municipal jobs that were similar, but at least more tees were crossed. Curious how you guys deal with this? Nothing has really been 'insane' other than one I recall where unknown rock was hit at 3ft depth, and the customer just kept asking for more and more. I realize some people say "some jobs go bad", but on that one, every time I fired equipment, he was out there asking for more. Luckily I had the lowboy coming and said, "I gotta go". I mean, it is sort of a gray area where you want to make clients happy, but I don't think they understand the expense! Yeah, it looks easy....when you have many tons of iron moving stuff. I think they see the progress in a short period and just want 'more'.
Spell out what you will do in a contract. When they ask for more, listen carefully and tell them you will draw up an addendum with pricing for what they ask for. That will stop it or open the door for more money.
Include a sample, blank "change order" after the original contract. When they want to make changes, give them the change order contract to sign with a new price on it.
Last place I worked for gave us instructions that change orders are fine... but have to be paid up front when requested
That's why I worked hourly rate or by completed area when I was land clearing. It saved that " oh while you're here" and " thought thats included in the price" bs.
I try to make quotes as clear as possible, as far a freebies it depends how good the job went, is there potential for future work (if I want to work for them again), how much time the extra would take when deciding if I will charge for it. No matter what at a certain point I say it will be extra. It doesn't always hold true but I generally find the people who expect extras for free I never want to do work for again, those that expect to pay for them I want to work for again and would go the extra bit because they aren't a pain to do work for. Like this week I did a garage demo, not directly for homeowner it was subbed, they had a big tree cut down and they didn't do a good job grinding the stump and they asked if I could try and break it off better. I had no problem spending 5 minutes doing what I could. Little stuff like that I never worry about, unless they are an absolute nightmare to deal with.
People wanting extra's for free are in the same category as people who want to complain and haggle when it comes time to pay at the end of the job. If it's a 5 minute deal fine but some people will want hours of extra's. If you're digging and encounter large rocks or other major obstructions, you should include a clause in the contract that there will be extra charges for unforeseen obstructions.
As someone with a pond that needs some work I can see how your clients would struggle to see everything that needs done as the projects go on. I agree with the others that say as long as you are getting paid appropriately for these add-ons it'd be ok, but even those little 5 minute freebie jobs can add up. Maybe that's something you can attempt to explain on your initial meetings with folks, like "Hey, I've done a bunch of these jobs and lots of people come up with extra stuff as the project goes on. If I need to add time and money to this you can expect blah, blah..." The crappy part, I'd imagine, is expecting a project to take a week, then needing to add a few days for the extras, so the next job is tough to schedule... On a similar note: want to come over and help out with my pond? My payment terms are easy! I don't have any money right now, but I may sometime in the future!
A wife that can cook and clean can sub for monetary payment.
Its that way in the repair shop to. They know i would look it over when they need a service and that we were booked up running on a schedule. But you would pull it in the shop and it would have a problem that you there is no way they didnt know about.
Had the best or worst? Example of this today. Demoed a house and included backfilling the hole, generally it's fill it level no big deal but this was far more tricky as it was a walkout and the elevation in the rear was about 12' lower then the front. Originally the scope for backfill was take the front and rear elevation and fill in between haul dirt and backfill no big deal get it done right? Nope. Customer calls and says nope I want it done this way and expects it included despite not saying anything until after nor ever saying how picky they were going to be. Today I had 6 calls in him changing his mind. I'm going to sod it will it grow grass? You're packing it right? Where is the fill coming from? I need a declaration that it's not contaminated fill. On and on...... Normally i'd have told the customer where to go but I am subbing the job and company i'm working for is making it up on a few other jobs and just wants to get it over with. Add in that they left a bunch of contents in the house, didn't clean up trees like they were suppose to and just expected it to be included. I told customer I could include that stuff but backfill could take a bit because fill had to be free but they just expect everything to be how they want it, not how it was actually quoted. Overall I still did very well on the job even with the screwing around and extra time, but that's not the point.
6 mind changing calls is nuts.
Fastline you might want to combine a lump sum price with unit pricing included for extras. This type of contract is common in the commercial markets I work in. Basically spell out the scope of work as best you can in your lump sum contract price. The unit prices can be: By the hour for every piece of iron you have By the CY - it can be different for muck, dirt, topsoil, rock, ect. By the LF - pipe, silt fence, ect. By the TN - for stone or other weighed product By the load - dump fees, fill dirt, topsoil, ect. When you have completed the contract scope of work you can be more than willing to accommodate any extra work at the unit pricing in the contract. For the ones wanting the extra work they'll pay for it and you can weed out the ones looking for freebies. BTW - The freebies aren't just for the retail/residential markets. A GC would like nothing more than for us to keep a crew on site until the sod goes down. Of course the job is competitively bid according to us mob'ing in completing the scope of work and moving on to the next job. They can't afford for us to stay on site the entire time but that doesn't stop them from trying. Sometimes a super will start finding stupid busy work for us to do in order to keep us on site. We've learned over the years to tell them if you have scope/contract work for us to do then let's do it, if not the lowboy is coming and we'll be back when you're ready. Works every time.
Run into this all the time, and whether or not it's a PITA largely depends on what kind of customer they are, and what the scope of work involved might be. Also how much work is lined up past that job. My favorite 'extra effort' request actually came this last week. Basic driveway/foundation/flatwork/septic job that turned into a real nightmare on account of a homeowner who fancied himself a GC, one of those who knows just enough to be dangerous. He requested that he be able to use the trench compactor to roll the Infiltrator septic drainfield we installed. Informed that you *don't* compact drainfields, he announced that .. "it says right here 'machine compaction' ". As we wanted of that mess asap, had to explain what that actually meant. Otherwise, it would have been tempting to let him go at it.
We get those types as super's on commercial sites. Dumb as a hammer but they think they know more about site work than we do. Our company policy on "loaning" equipment - Our insurance specifically forbids us from allowing anyone not an employee from operation our equipment". Whether the policy says so or not..
Well, in a couple cases, my contract clearly indicates the worksite to be in a certain condition. I ask if it's ready, they say yes, I show with the big girl, and realize I have two choices....take care of it, or wait. Nothing that big of a deal, but come on. On one, it went south when I see all the wood fence posts still up where I need to work. So I waste time with the thumb trying to carefully remove, and break a few. That job went bad because the owner did not even know what he wanted. We wasted a ton of time talking about it. Guy bought the property as pretty much a dump and there were thousands of glass bottles all over. I told him the quickest way is an onsite grave for such a mess. I brought in a skidsteer to screed off the top. It mostly worked well, but in the sun you could see sparkly glass everywhere. There really was no way to get every broken sliver! The customer liked how easy the Ex dealt with fence posts and asked about many more. I probably wrapped up another 3-4hrs just dicking with that. All free.... Mostly because they were in my damn way, and were supposed to be out of the way! Then the customer wanted a culvert moved. I told them that is usually the township. he called and they said they were busy, just do it....lol So I charge very little (my fault) to try to move. There is where I fought with compaction and the clock trying to recover a steel culvert pipe. I bent it trying to get it out so told the customer and advised to straighten what I can and reinstall. Then I hit a fiber optic as I did not call locates, as I was not really there to move a culvert. Another I recall where I spelled out clearly that 'all trees in driveway trimmed to 14' high, 12' wide for excavator access. I get there and.....nope..... So I spend an hour snapping tree limbs with the hoe to get access, have to move a fence, tractor implements, etc. ALL things that were on the contract. Luckily this crap is not my day job, or I might lose my mind.
Crap fastline! Sounds like some rough days!
If you let a customer use your equipment, the next thing you know is they'll want a discount because they did the work. I showed up at a job to backfill and grade around a new house on an acreage. It was too wet but the customer (for lack of a better term) insisted I could do it. He practically begged me to have one of non alcoholic beers. I refused. Then he thought that putting short pieces of weeping tile at 90 deg's. to the foundation would somehow help with drainage. They weren't connected to anything. It was basically burying garbage. I was accomplishing something but was slipping and sliding around a bit. All of a sudden he went ballistic. You almost hit the house, you almost hit the house (concrete foundation). I explained that I didn't hit the house and that it was him who insisted I try to do the job despite my telling him it was too wet. All in all it turned out pretty good considering but you couldn't pay me enough to ever work for that moron again.
A job i was sent to were a retaining wall had been built and had been backfilled with dirt. My job was to dig down behind it so drainage pipe could installed and backfilled with the appropriate gravel. The wall height went from 1 metre to 6 metres with a dead-end at the high end. Someone had already started the work and for some reason was a no-show and had started from the low end which was were the access was to get the digger in. I pointed out to the bloke running the job that they had started at the wrong end and why I. After a bit of a heated discussion I did it his way which was fine until I got to the end a week later. He wanted me to write up the hire docket and I refused and told him it would be done when the digger got back to where it could be loaded which was what I had pointed out would happen when I first arrived. Well didn't he go off especially when I told him that dumb arses need to be punished for being stupid. Half a day later I got the digger out and loaded, got the hire docket signed. At end of the day none of this needed to happen (a) if the wall had been backfilled properly and (b) if people listen to others who may have a little more wisdom.
We will do a few small changes, but once bigger changes come, and they don't know what they want, it becomes time and materials. There many people that have no problem with money, but don't really know what they want, and the entire project becomes time and materials. We make sure they know that once it's paved, it's too late to change your mind. Any add on will have a seam.
Doesn't take many jobs to start figuring in a "pita" charge. Sometimes its the wishy-washy customer, other times its driving a 60" wide Bobcat thru a 62" wide door 75 times...while using your angle iron trailer ramps. And my mom wonders why I drink. Ed
This week I have been on a job that I knew from my conversation with him would have to be by the hour. I hate working like, but sometimes it really is the best answer to the problem. I kid you not, he has changed his mind 3-4 times a day, every day we have been there. I spent a day the week before with a CTL pushing a bunch of material. Came back this week entire project has changed and wiped out everything I had already done. As of today, we have moved 85 12 yard dump truck loads from the back yard to the front yard. We have at least 25 more tomorrow, and I could care less. He is getting a great deal, we have moved a lot of dirt for the money, but had I tried bidding this it would have been a constant battle changing the bid to accomondate the changes. When I bid a project and they want more, and if it is more than I am willing to donate, I just ask if they want me to bid the changes or by the hour over the bid.
Here in Australia a written quote is legally binding on both parties,for the customer and contractor to understand the scope of work and the price they have to pay/charge which is set in stone. Any changes the customer makes a contract variation is required from the customer and signed off by both parties. During this process the contractor can quote that new work or give an estimate which isn't binding or not do any further work. The original scope of work must be completed by the contractor in order to be paid. Other things like unforeseen ground conditions clauses should be written in the quote but not necessarily costed and the same with establishment costs.