Estimating practice / 8 min read
The scope items that lose bids, trade by trade
Bids are rarely lost on the big quantity. They are lost on the item nobody carried, because it was described in a specification paragraph rather than drawn on a plan.
There is a pattern to the items that get missed. Almost none of them are hidden. They are simply somewhere other than where a takeoff naturally looks: in a specification section, in a wall section detail, in a schedule, or in a narrative paragraph that describes work the drawings never show.
What follows is a catalogue by trade. It is drawn from real reviewed and priced sets, with the projects removed. If you are bidding one of these trades this week, it is a checklist.
Acoustical ceilings
- Perimeter angle taken as a room perimeter
- The angle runs around every column, every soffit return and every interior island, not just the walls. A field full of columns understates by a lot.
- Seismic bracing
- Compression posts and splay wire sets come from the seismic design category and the ceiling area, both of which live in the specification rather than on the reflected ceiling plan.
- Cutouts counted as one number
- A troffer drop in and a slot diffuser cut are not the same labour. Count them by fixture type.
Interior demolition
- Casework and store fixtures
- The most commonly missed item on this trade. Millwork, wall standards and display units are almost never in the demolition drawing scope, and they are always in the building. They come off the photographic survey.
- Column wraps
- Individually counted, often furred with more than one layer, and invisible on a floor plan read as areas.
- Make safe against removal
- Sets frequently describe both for the mechanical and electrical scope without drawing the boundary. Getting it wrong in either direction is expensive.
- Disposal priced by volume
- Haul and tip are charged by weight. Converting to tonnage by material type, then applying the diversion requirement, is part of the takeoff rather than an afterthought.
Concrete restoration
- Traffic coating reinstatement
- Coating is removed to repair and reinstated afterwards over an area always larger than the patch. On a full deck it is a substantial square footage and it belongs on its own line.
- Expansion joints bundled with sealant
- Different product, different crew, materially higher unit rate. One of the most common register errors.
- Shoring
- Implied by the extent of full depth work on suspended slabs and almost never a line in the repair register.
- Partial and full depth on one line
- Full depth on a suspended slab pulls shoring, formwork from below and a longer closure. It is not a deeper version of a surface patch.
Drywall
- Shaftwall at stair and elevator landings
- A different product and a different install, appearing as one line on a partition schedule and adding up fast in a stair core.
- Metal stud bulkheads and soffits
- Neither wall nor ceiling, slow, detail heavy, and invisible on a plan read as partition lines.
- Firestopping and head of wall
- Every rated wall has a head of wall condition and every penetration a listed detail. It is priced work.
- Backing and blocking
- Behind every wall mounted item, and usually an architectural note rather than part of the drywall scope drawings.
Masonry and earthwork
- Grout fill condition
- Fully grouted and partially grouted walls look identical in elevation and are very different prices. It comes from the structural drawings.
- Cavity components
- Through wall flashing, weeps, anchors and insulation live in the wall section detail, not on the plan.
- Over excavation and recompaction
- Called for in the geotechnical report rather than on the grading plan, which is exactly why it is missed. It can be a very large volume.
- Topsoil strip and respread
- Two operations with a stockpile in between, and stockpile space is a site constraint before it is a cost.
Want this applied to your set?
Send it over and we will tell you what it costs to price properly.