Tag: contractors

May 3, 2022 – Knowing When to Say Uncle

May 3, 2022 /

I come from a long line of never give up, I can do it men. It kills me to pay for something that I can do. But, it is a matter of my time and what I can do (efficiently). For years our fence has been in poor shape and inexplicably part of it fell down last week.

This is a topic that has been coming up about once a year for the last five years or so. My neighbor has done a lot of shoring up in that period. The truth is, he is the cause of much of the damage anyway as there is a lot of weight against the fence so he has a vested interest in keeping it functional. There are wires anchoring it to trees and sistered posts. This is all on his side, so I cant see it.

In fact, I had spoken to him about a month ago that we planned to replace the fence this summer. I wanted to get a rough lumber cost to see if I wanted to do the job or not. After I saw it was $6 a fence board, I was hoping it would last another year. But, now that the fence has fallen down, we need to get it repaired quickly.

We are looking at getting five bids (still waiting for the first one however). What I can say is that five different people showed up to take measurements. Almost all of them we have some kind of affiliation with. Even so, I was surprised to get attention and action so quickly. Maybe it is the season is still slow or maybe things have cooled down quickly? I can’t really say.

The heart of what I am trying to get at is that while I can do it, I cannot do everything. We have a trip planned for Spain after school is out and I have another problem (project) that I will talk about tomorrow. In addition, with all of the family activities and business travel plus we need to keep our animals in the yard as well as the neighbors animal out. Plus, the weather is not great right now anyway.

Some times I do things because I want the experience. Other times I do things because they are in my wheel house and it is cheaper and faster for me to do them. Lastly, there are times when it is far more economic for me to do them because there is no real deadline. I know myself and my commitments and things always take significantly longer than I expect because I do not spend the time I would like doing the project. There is also the opposite opinion of what would you rather do?

With the price of materials, most of the cost is going to go to that. I have a feeling that labor is going to be a relatively small portion of the bid. There is also the factor that it will probably get done in a couple of days and I think all the debris will be removed. For me, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took all summer. If I had nothing else to do, I would love to do the job and save the labor cost. But the reality is I don’t really want to spend my entire summer doing this job.

The economics of the situation says in theory, if I can pay someone less than what I can earn with the same time, then possibly you save money. There is also the potential of having to buy single use tools and even skill deficits. I can’t use those excuses nor will I have another job to do instead of building a fence. I would say it is more that we need it done sooner rather than later. The truth is the adjacent fence has been broken for at least seven years as well. It has literally been sitting on the ground for years hanging on by a nail. So, it is time.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe it is getting older and wiser or maybe it is becoming more confident that I am having a slight mindset shift. I would never consider paying someone to do something that I could do. But, since we have paid for yard maintenance, I have come to understand that I do things that I want to do rather than out of obligation. Hiring someone to replace the fence is not because I can’t but because I want to spend my time elsewhere.

September 25, 2020 – Writing proper job bids and contractor communication for success

September 25, 2020 /

What I wanted to talk about today is the contractor communication process. In my experience, this is a weak link in this type of arrangement. I saw it over and over in software where it was impossible to get enough detail to accurately bid jobs. That lead to weak quotes and proposal without a lot of proper detail and gaps. That lead to both sides not being on the same page with expectations.

One trick with bids is to provide the right level of detail. It cannot be so vague as to not provide any specific details or scope of work. It should be clear why this is a problem. Under this circumstance, there are no deliverables, end points or success criteria.

It also cannot be so detailed as to provide line item costs. This one is not quite as clear. Why would too much detail be a problem? Unfortunately, human nature causes people to want to cheapen the price. To do that, they want to eliminate steps that are likely integral to executing the project. Using software again, you can save a lot of money by skipping design or testing. But, if you think that is a good idea then I would argue you are probably not experienced enough to be looking at bids. Nevertheless, just don’t have the detailed conversation in the first place.

Here is the bid that I put together today. I deleted some of the details because this contract is now accepted. But it contains the price first, so the cost is out there. There is an expiration date, so if circumstances change it would need to be requoted. In this case, there is no lead time to order materials. There is an expectation of how long the work will take, where the work will be done and does the bid include materials.

I think that the description is adequate for the scope of what is being done. I didn’t give the exact door so my work of sourcing will be paid for. Or said another way, the client buys the door and pays someone $10/hour to install it. I mention which parts of the old door I will re-use. I will also remove the old door and material.

I took a picture of the door that is to be replaced because this house is empty and I wanted no confusion about which door I was bidding on. If this were a larger project, I would take daily pictures of the progress. I would text them to the client so that there is a chance to intervene before it is too late.

Now, I am not super busy at the moment. I can jump right on jobs immediately. I also know first hand that contractors are notorious for not stating when they will be on site, work consistently on site or the progress of the job. I always believe that honesty is the best policy. With my daily status checks, I also provide my next time on site and what I hope to be completing.

These are some tips that I use successfully, and maybe if you are not in this field you can use the information to get a better bid next time. Have a good weekend.