Estimating the volume of excavations is not an easy task. This is largely because you will be dealing with material that is not visible and you do not know what you will encounter before you start digging. The process of earthwork estimating is quite tricky but it needs not be.
The machines that you use are also likely to fail at any time and without warning. Employees have different levels of productivity and its not easy to predict how they will behave in future. The good news is that there are easy ways to guarantee a profit when doing such work by developing precise estimates.
One of the worst mistakes you can make when quoting for such a job is to fail to account for other items that may come up in the course of operation. Since you may not know what will happen when the job begins, it is always important to keep your options open and discus with the client that in case the job requires extra hours when you find a rock, the estimate should be flexible enough.
Ask whether the work entails excavation or both digging and carrying the soil to a particular destination. If so, you might have to add the cost of transport depending on the distance. These factors will guide you when coming up with a tentative figure that is both profitable and competitive.
You do not want to give discounts in areas where you will incur huge expenses and having software to highlight these areas will also help you to determine where you can lower your quote to make it more competitive and give you more confidence from tendering. The ability to interpret topographical maps will give you some insight when it comes to predicting the subsurface conditions.
If you do not know how to read site topographical and geological plans, be sure to find somebody who can as missing some crucial data will not be an excuse when awarded the project. This will also help you to assess the difficulty of the job or any accessibility problems. Soil structures will also have a bearing on the ease with which you can do the job. Some consultants have ways of estimating the subsurface conditions by digging pit holes as they do when mining.
Others will read deeper into the contour maps and while they may not show any rocks in the plan, the occurrence of contours too close to each other or in the event that the contours meet suggest the presence of a cliff and consequently plenty of rocks. There is software that can make your work easier, help you to give discounts where you can since you will understand the difficult areas and the overheads that come with the job.
Instead of bidding for jobs on a lump sum basis, it is wiser to calculate the quantities and quote for them based on cubic yards and the ratio of rocks to soil. A good engineer does not necessarily become a good estimator since they do not consider the swelling and shrinkage of soil. But they can help you when it comes to developing figures of rock and soil in terms of cubic yards.
The machines that you use are also likely to fail at any time and without warning. Employees have different levels of productivity and its not easy to predict how they will behave in future. The good news is that there are easy ways to guarantee a profit when doing such work by developing precise estimates.
One of the worst mistakes you can make when quoting for such a job is to fail to account for other items that may come up in the course of operation. Since you may not know what will happen when the job begins, it is always important to keep your options open and discus with the client that in case the job requires extra hours when you find a rock, the estimate should be flexible enough.
Ask whether the work entails excavation or both digging and carrying the soil to a particular destination. If so, you might have to add the cost of transport depending on the distance. These factors will guide you when coming up with a tentative figure that is both profitable and competitive.
You do not want to give discounts in areas where you will incur huge expenses and having software to highlight these areas will also help you to determine where you can lower your quote to make it more competitive and give you more confidence from tendering. The ability to interpret topographical maps will give you some insight when it comes to predicting the subsurface conditions.
If you do not know how to read site topographical and geological plans, be sure to find somebody who can as missing some crucial data will not be an excuse when awarded the project. This will also help you to assess the difficulty of the job or any accessibility problems. Soil structures will also have a bearing on the ease with which you can do the job. Some consultants have ways of estimating the subsurface conditions by digging pit holes as they do when mining.
Others will read deeper into the contour maps and while they may not show any rocks in the plan, the occurrence of contours too close to each other or in the event that the contours meet suggest the presence of a cliff and consequently plenty of rocks. There is software that can make your work easier, help you to give discounts where you can since you will understand the difficult areas and the overheads that come with the job.
Instead of bidding for jobs on a lump sum basis, it is wiser to calculate the quantities and quote for them based on cubic yards and the ratio of rocks to soil. A good engineer does not necessarily become a good estimator since they do not consider the swelling and shrinkage of soil. But they can help you when it comes to developing figures of rock and soil in terms of cubic yards.
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