I bid on my first demo job. The house was a single story 36x26 on a crawl, block exterior walls and a car port off the back 12x20 (wood) and a few interior items. Interior walls and floor are all wood and rotten, and the roof is seriously like a 2/12 pitch. Surrounded by trees and bushes, this thing was dilapidated. Roof caving in, floor cave to the ground, been siting for 20 years. on a well and tank, with and old fuel tank for heat. I bid 5500 on the demo and removal of debris and 1500 on bringing the dirt in to level back off. Fill dirt is 2.50/ton and trucking is 8/ton(roughly).I was under bid at 4800 for everything, demo and dirt. Was my price that far off or was his that far under.
Don't feel too bad we are getting underbid by companies that just a few years ago would not even consider a sub 250K job.... now they are snatching up 5 and 10K jobs just to keep their guys working, the last one was a burned out mini mart on a concrete pad, just to demo the wood construction and dispose of it they beat us by about 20 percent... and our dump fees were over 75 percent of our bid!!!
Im not beating myself up by any means. I am just curious if my pricing sounded to high. The company that beat me is a larger excavation company, but with the price of trucking it seems like he would be working for peanuts. I could be wrong, but this was my first demo bid. Definatley not my first construction bid though.
At first glance I don't think you would have made money with what you bid but I don't know your disposal rates, per CY or ton, local conditions or operating expenses. What's your disposal costs - per CY or ton? Are you hauling the debris or contracting it out? Any permits you need to do the job? Can you dump concrete, block, brick etc in a clean fill site instead of a landfill? Did the bid include filling the well or demo'ing the septic tank and oil tank? I have never lost money on a job I was underbid and didn't get.
Who would be responsible for environmental clean up if it turned out the oil tank had been leaking? Around here that can turn into dump truck loads of money, with no guarantee they won't come back in five years for retesting and more clean up.
I was leaving permits up to him and in my contract I made sure to alleviate myself from all liability from contamination, asbestos, lead, fuel, etc... Leaving the well, just capping the lines for re use in the future. I contract all my trucking, its $11/yrd of hard fill and can the rest, 40yrd at 420-450 each i believe.
or 270 for 15 yrs can, for concrete. Which is obviously more expensive.
To the original question, I agree with everything cm1995 said. You should keep in mind you can't exempt yourself from environmental or other liability by contract. The contract is between you and the property owner, the liability is between you and the regulators, or between you and the court.
Thought I replied last night. So even if the homeowner pulls the permits, I am still liable for contamination?
OK, we're close on costs as far as disposal and trucking go. I'm $350-375 on 30's, close on trucking. No you wouldn't have made any money and the poor sap that underbid you at $4800, paid them to do the job.
Thank you for verifying my suspicions. You know the homeowner was telling me "well he can probably do it cheaper because hes set up for it". Referencing me not having my own dump truck. The way i see it was even if i did, i would still charge the same or else im running my truck for free, which is retarded. Anyway thanks for the reply CM