What is the best way to estimate a trenching job? Figure the volume of material & charge by the cu. yd?
Small jobs charge by the hour, large jobs by the cubic foot or yard, average what your machine will dig per hour and us that to quote your job.
I charge by the foot. Be careful though, because if you have all of your overhead figured into a unit price and the units get slashed, it could hurt you.
Linear foot? I have done most of my very small trenching jobs by the hour but this one needs to be bid and it is larger then usual. 8'D x 5'W. The conditions are good. No cave-ins. No troublesome rock. Just yellow clay. I came up with about 1500 cu. yds.
I don't know where you live or what all needs to be done on that job but i live in michigan and i charge $6.00 to excavate, backfill, and grade. or $2.00 to just excavate and load it into trucks. I havn't figured new prices for my 2008 year but with fuel costs up as much as they are i will need to adjust this a little bit.
seems cheap,how far a day do you get done