Bid Breakouts

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Author Message Jerry Tims AIA, CSI Senior Member Username: jtims Post Number: 64 Registered: 04-2005 Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 10:54 am:    I'm working on a small church job that will be going out for bids to an invited list of contractors. The owner has requested that the contractors be required to provide separate pricing for the entire job, broken out by specification section. I've never had this request before, but it seems to be overkill to me. Have any of you had similar requests? Pros? Cons? Mark Gilligan SE, CSI Senior Member Username: mark_gilligan Post Number: 149 Registered: 10-2007 Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 10:57 am:    Has the owner explained why he wants to do this and how he will use the numbers? Jerry Tims AIA, CSI Senior Member Username: jtims Post Number: 65 Registered: 04-2005 Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 11:01 am:    They just want to see the numbers. Seems to me it might be more appropriate to say somewhere that additional breakdowns might be requested after the bids are opened. Nathan Woods, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 290 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 11:07 am:    Sounds like fairly conventional practice to me. Every project I have ever done has a schedule of values. The only nuance that I can tell from your brief post is that usually the SOV is by trade, not be spec division. Is there a chance your church client is confusing trade definitions with material section numbers? Mark Gilligan SE, CSI Senior Member Username: mark_gilligan Post Number: 150 Registered: 10-2007 Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 11:09 am:    Unless we understand the reasons and expectations it will be difficult to discuss the pros and cons. If you do not understand the reasons it will be difficult for you to have confidence that you can fulfill their expectations. Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wayne_yancey Post Number: 176 Registered: 01-2008 Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 12:26 pm:    Jerry, Terminology (separate prices) and Owners intent/expection are confusing your task. Does the Owner really want a subcontractor's price breakdown submiited with the bids or within 24-48 hours after the bid closing? I have sucessfully used this method on many public and private bid projects. Mainly for the purpose of preventing the GC from future bid peddling and confirming that the GC has the prerequisite capability if using it's own forces for some trades. Avoid requesting information which is not essential or relevant to the selection of a low bidder. While Separate Prices are an integral part of the Bid Form, they are not part of the Base Bid. The Bidders require a specific and exact description of the requested Separate Price including all peripheral conditions affecting it. Also indicate whether overhead, profit, taxes, or other factors are included or excluded. Separate prices, alternates, etc. complicate the bidding process and generally should be avoided. (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 02:05 pm:    In my experience, owners have numerous agenda in making such request from maintaining a comprehensive database of construction costs for ongoing analysis (national chain) to owner wanting to shop subbids. It can be a good way to verify that bidders have included all of the work, but it is not foolproof. I know of one owner who provided this information to his favorite contractor (who was not the low bidder) and told him to get the same price from that sub. You should have a very direct conversation about the use of this information, and I would suggest that if you find out that your client wants to bid shop among subbidders, you inform him/her that this is unethical and may damage your longterm reputation in the local construction industry. I prefer to call this a bid tabulation form to keep it separate from the Schedule of Values. I recommend that it be submitted by the end of the day that bids are received and that fax or e-mail submittals be permitted. This gives bidders the opportunity to include last-minute changes in their lump sum amounts without having to reconcile it with the bid tabluation form. I do not encourage my clients to use bid tabluation forms without understanding how the information will be used. I like Mr. Yancy's admonition about avoiding requesting information not relevant to selection of bidder. I would like to see that the information is very general with enough detail to be informative, but not so much detail that it can be used to subvert the intent of the bidding process. I usually recommned that it be broken out by CSI Division (not Section), and I would suggest that more information does not necessarily contribute to the decision of whose bid to accept. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1032 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 01:35 pm:    I have done this as well, but have usually given a specific required list of necessary line-items. Clients didn't really want a separate line item for fire extinguisher cabinets, for example. But, all major assemblies certainly had a line, plus one, of course, for all other construction.