Restoration / 7 min read
How a parking garage condition assessment becomes a priced scope
Restoration work is not bid the way new construction is bid. There is no drawing of what to build, because nobody has designed it. There is a register, and there are photographs.
A parking structure repair package usually arrives as three documents: a condition assessment narrative, a priority repair register listing individual repairs by location, and a set of photographs keyed to that register. Sometimes there are standard repair details. There is almost never a dimensioned drawing of the actual work.
That is not a deficiency in the documents. It is how the work is procured, because the extent of a repair is not knowable until the concrete is opened. But it means the quantities have to be built, and how they are built determines whether the bid is competitive or merely low.
The order that works
- 01
Read the narrative before the register
The assessment tells you the deterioration mechanism. Chloride induced corrosion, freeze thaw damage and delamination behind a failed coating produce different repairs at different rates, and the register on its own does not distinguish them.
- 02
Establish scale from the structure, not the photograph
Where a photograph has no reference in frame, use the known dimensions of the structure: double tee flange width, bay spacing, joint spacing, curb height. Those come off the original structural drawings and are far more reliable than judging a spall against an image.
- 03
Classify every item by depth and by location
Partial depth on grade, partial depth on a suspended slab, full depth, overhead and vertical face are five different unit costs. Registers routinely record all five under one heading.
- 04
Apply a minimum patch size, consistently
A recorded spall smaller than a crew will realistically saw, chip and place still costs the minimum. Apply it the same way across the whole structure so the numbers stay internally comparable.
- 05
Recover what the register leaves out
Traffic coating, joint sealant, expansion joints and shoring are frequently in the narrative and absent from the item list. Quantify them from the deck plans and carry them as clearly separated additions, so the contractor can see exactly what was added.
- 06
Flag what is not a repair
Corrosion at a post tensioned tendon anchorage is an engineering question, and its extent cannot be established from a photograph. Write it up with no number against it and a recommendation to seek direction. Pricing it commits you to a scope nobody has defined.
Phasing is a price, not a note
A garage that keeps operating during the work is a different job from one that closes. The owner sets a maximum number of spaces out of service at any time, and that constraint drives the phasing, the number of mobilisations and the programme duration.
The same total quantity of patching delivered in six phases instead of two carries more setup, more protection, more traffic management and more time, while the concrete quantity does not change at all. Where the documents state a closure limit, price to it and say so. Where they do not, state the assumption you priced to and put it in your qualifications.
Why the basis note matters more here than anywhere
On a job priced from photographs, every quantity is a derivation. Writing down which derivation was used, on every line, does two things. It lets you defend the number when the engineer or the owner questions it. And it gives you a fair starting point for a unit rate adjustment when the field condition turns out to be different, which on this kind of work it frequently does.
A restoration bid without a written quantity basis is a number you cannot argue for. That is a weak position to be in on a job where the scope is expected to move.
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