How would you bid this?

[mikewhite85]

Tricky one. Doing a bid for a year long municipality contract. Trees are per unit based on dbh.

It's mostly incidental tree work along county roads. There are service wires and such. Some will be easy some may be tricky.

Just looking for some ideas as I consider this thing.

OH almost forgot. It's prevailing wage so guys are making between 27 to 40 per hour.

I feel like I could either lose my shirt or way over bid.

 

[uniballer]

High enough.

 

[GenXer]

I think it's public record for those tenders going out in previous years.

I'd look at the past 10 years of winning bids and go from there.

 

[Haplo]

For each of those categories, ask yourself:

1. how many man hours would it take if everything went as smooth as possible
2. How many man hours would it take on your worst day when everything goes wrong.

Average those two numbers together, multiply by your rate and fill out the chart.

For stumps that's a bit tricky because I would do $8-12 per diameter inch at ground level. Since they want to go by dbh that doesn't take root flare into account. I wonder if you can red line the contract to define stump measurements as D at ground level

 

[Haplo]

Average those two numbers together, multiply by your rate and fill out the chart

Actually I wouldn't average it one to one. If things generally go very smoothly 8 times out of 10 then I would average it that way.

So for example if one of those categories takes 4 hours going smooth and 10 when it's a puzzle and everything goes wrong, then you would do:

[ (4x8)+(10x2) ] / 10 = 5.2 man hours

 

[Haplo]

I think it's public record for those tenders going out in previous years.

I'd look at the past 10 years of winning bids and go from there.

I would do my own numbers first then check against the records. Starting with someone else's numbers might lead you to repeat their mistakes

 

[treebilly]

Bid mid range to worst case scenario. If they already have a municipal arborist division, those guys will be given the gravy.
I like that they have the DBH set up in 6” increments. We have one contract that is in one foot increments and it really pisses me off when I do a 47” DBH for the same price as a 36” DBH. Of course we have another contract that is in 2” increments once we get over 40” and the price goes up exponentially.
Either way that is a good contract to get. Guys make good money and you can too if bid right. Make sure the guys understand that to keep the contract and the good pay that goes with it they’ll need to perform efficiently and professionally at all times.

 

[mikewhite85]

Thanks for the help. All wise words.

I looked at a previous year's results and the pricing seemed way to low for prev wage so I decided not to bid. However, I did watch the bid result meeting this afternoon. 4 companies bid. All but one were at least twice the rates of previous results. Now I'm kicking myself for not bidding! Oh well.