We are a smaller excavation company and only been in the game for a few years but have had very good success on the commercial site-prep side of things, however, it seems like the next obvious step would be to start rolling site utilities into our bid packages. Most all our competitors do some form of utility work and it puts us a at slight disadvantage. How can we start moving into this market given our lack of experience? We lay a bit of storm time to time but that is about the extent of it. We would like to have more control of the job sites and be able to open up work possibilities and this seems like a good way if we can figure out.
I would start off on some smaller projects maybe a few hundred feet to kinda get your feet wet and see what its going to take I wouldn't bid any jobs that are real deep and working in the street cause can that can be a whole can of worms if you don't have the experienced people to help with sort of stuff if you don't have anybody that has done a lot of site utility work it wouldn't hurt to find someone to help you along of course the name of the game is to get as much footage in the ground as possible and fast. If were on a site with no utilities to cross and no one else but us working their we can dig lay and backfill 700-800 feet in 8 hours with 4 guys that's only pushing 5 feet deep doing water line usually on sewer or storm if were having to pull a box or open cut 10-12 feet deep we average about 140-200 feet a day depending on how we have to backfill and if we stuff in the way to cross good luck
Thats pretty much along the lines of what I was thinking, the biggest hurdle for me is puttin the numbers to it having not done it before.
you should focus on good takeoffs and understanding your production rates. I may be able to help you get started, let me know if you are interested.
Like tpr said it helps having good take offs a cat performance handbook should help with production rates I don't know what kind of soil your in their is a math formula to figure your bank cubic yards and what it will wind up being as loose cubic yards to give you an idea how much yardage you will dig and compact hope this helps
Just hire an experienced superintendent that's done it before. They're out there. Look for an older one that's done some estimating before. Go to your state unemployment office, they're a great resource. Maybe find one that wants to work part time even. You do not want to buy an education by underbidding a utilities job.