Mittens @ 12/3/2018 21:14

Update for anyone who cares: Bid opening for the project I've been working on most recently was today. The engineer estimate I put together ended up falling between the 2nd and 3rd lowest bids out of 6 total, and was only 5.5% over the apparent low bid. After getting torched on my biggest job last year by being under by a significant amount this was a good way to start off the bidding season for me. Thanks for listening.

Please post updates on FFA. Thanks

We are rarely the lowest bidder, but we just say "You can do it quality or we can laugh at your results later."

I was at a bid opening one time. Ti beat the local guy by 400k on a 3mil bid. My erector is a lot cheaper than his, so I thought "well, we left some money on the table, but we'll do ok." Then the read the last bid and he was almost a mil under me.

They read his number, it got kind of quiet, and the guy behind me said "Oh fuck!" I was able to hold in my laughter until I got outside.

My favorite bid moment happened when we bid as a GC on the a very large project in Lansing, MI. I helped with the bid but was also the bid runner. When I got to the bid location I just found a nice quiet spot that I got good cell reception and waited. It just happened to be at the very bottom of a stair well cause I checked it to make sure no one was in there. Well as I stood and waited for my call I heard three guys enter the stair well looking for a place to fill out their bid. They didn’t check or have any idea I was there, so I listened and made a note when they read back the bid number to the guy they were talking to on the phone.

Shortly after they walked out of the stair my phone rang and our Company President was on the other end of the line. He read our number to me $76,549,000. I didn’t nt write it down I asked him if he really wanted the job and told him what had happened so he lowered our number to 75,250,000. Which was about $250,000 under the number I had heard. I stayed for the bid opening and we read low and the second bidder was about $200,000 above us with the company I heard in the stair well was third.

Needless to say we had a fun night that night when we all went out to the bar and I had an even better time when bonuses came around for they tripled mine from the year before.

Yeah we read numbers in the truck before we go in if we can.

Primate has an erector. Noted.

Snowflake poker @ 13/3/2018 19:03

Primate has an erector. Noted.

I used to perform my own erection, but the liability is too high. :awesome:

You gc's have it rough. Juggling all those numbers coming in at the last minute.

Primate @ 13/3/2018 20:07

You gc's have it rough. Juggling all those numbers coming in at the last minute.

It’s so crazy with numbers coming in at the last minute. The mechanicals and electiclas contractor suppliers are the worst. They hold their number until the very end to try and avoid shopping. Then the subs have to piece shit together quick and send it to us. And then we have to call the number in to the bid runner hopefully with enough time to turn it in. Usually all happens in the last 10 minutes. When your dealing with larger projects it get pretty dam intense.

Yeah, we usually only have 1 to 5 buyouts per job, so it's not as tough for us. On the other side, we get those calls from the U.S. nobody has ever heard of asking for our number a day early, so I understand not wanting to get shopped too.

I love when I figure out who shopped my number when it happens and then giving them the +30-50% number for the next job and sending it to them a day early.

Ben @ 13/3/2018 19:54

I love when I figure out who shopped my number when it happens and then giving them the +30-50% number for the next job and sending it to them a day early.

Lol. Or send them a high number the day before and the real one one about a minute after bid time.

Crazy variation on some of your bids.

We've done more bid work recently, and it seems like we're within % points ...

Dadd @ 14/3/2018 9:17

Crazy variation on some of your bids. We've done more bid work recently, and it seems like we're within % points ...

What kind of work?

Dadd @ 14/3/2018 8:17

Crazy variation on some of your bids. We've done more bid work recently, and it seems like we're within % points ...

It all depends on the drawings. If they are bad, you get crazy variations.