Need Help with bidding

[abbott hill]

I am currently working on a bid for a local city. I want to make sure I do it properly. Would someone give me a figure on what I should charge per hour for a;Bucket truck,chipper,log truck. and three men, all fully insured,workers comp etc...

 

[Lumberjack]

Your kidding right? If you have all that gear and dont know what to charge your already outta your leauge. Not to mention your question and description is vauge to say the least.

I charge $150 a crew hour (3 guys) without a chipper, bucket, or log truck.

Ever heard of a troll?

 

[Thor's Hammer]

Someone tell me what a troll is please...

 

[fwf]

Why not do it the old-fashioned way? Bribe a city official to tell you what the other bids are, then you come just a little lower.

 

[iain]

fwf

telling it like it is !!

i wish

 

[treeseer]

Why not do it the old-fashioned way? Bribe a city official to tell you what the other bids are, then you come just a little lower.

Past bids for public work are public info. You shouldn't have to bribe, but you usually have to press through channels set up to discourage view. Looking at past bids will give you a good idea what to bid now.

 

[treeman82]

$5 / man hour. You may or may not get the job at that rate.

 

[treeseer]

o and hammer, a troll is an ugly vandal whose goal is to disrupt traffic. Examples of this are extorting money from billy goats crossing a bridge and clogging cyberspace communication with fraudulent posts.

I thought trolls were notorious in Norse myths.

$5/man hr, yeah, that might be competitive--go for it!

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

Someone tell me what a troll is please...

Trolling ie like trolling /spinning for a fish ,a troll is somebody who thinks there clever baiting members ,ie trying to get a laugh by talking chit and getting a mad responce..i'm not saying this guy is a troll

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

treeseer's example is also a good one ,i guess there are 2 meanings to the name troll

 

[Thor's Hammer]

har de har har...

 

[tophopper]

Im with LJ here- if you have to ask here what you should be charging, you ARE out of your own league!
Secondly, what Guy says is true, past contracts are public records and avail to anyone who wants them.

But- off the top of my head
--- a bucket with operator $125 hour min.
----a prentice loader with operator 125 hour min.
----a chipper w truck and operator 125 hour min.
-----a climber by the hour 90 hour min.
--- a groundie by the hour 55 hour min.

but these figures are all moot- cuz each company should set prices according to overhead. If you dont know how to establish your own rates you probably shouldnt be bidding.

my 2 cents

 

[MasterBlaster]

I don't know why some of ya'll are freaking so. I don't know Abbott's situation.

Do any of you?

 

[fwf]

I don't know why some of ya'll are freaking so. I don't know Abbott's situation.

Do any of you?

I don't even know my own situation without checking with my wife, but that doesn't stop me from having opinions.

 

[T D SPsECIALIST]

a few other things to consider,some require a bid bond,time frame and payment sched.

 

[vharrison2]

too funny

 

[Ax-man]

I bet the winning bid is 1/2 or less the numbers Tophopper put up, I never have understood this when it comes to bidding city or state work, all the contractors seem to throw common sense right out the window and bid it for waaaaay less than they would in the private sector.

What is the big deal any way to cut your rates for a city job, anyone have the answer to that one????? Surely it couldn't be for the distinguished priviledge to work for a city. There is a lot of politics and brown nosing going on when it comes to this work, it was a game I was never any good at playing. One year your on top the next they throw ya out because your man is not in office any more or you didn't play the game right. How quickly they forget when a storm rolls through and you drop, literally drop what your doing to help out the public works dept, so some darn tree doesn't split apart and crush a house and a couple of cars, your a hero one day and yesterday's newspaper the next.

Larry

 

[T D SPsECIALIST]

bidding

i agree with axe man on this one,the last city bid opening i was at ,i thought were they looking at the same trees i was.a few years ago one of the larger companies in town convinced the city forester that you could not do the removals with out a crane,yet i had seen some their crews doing several without.they used a crane on the bigger ones and yet it was stated in the bid that a crane was to be used on all removals.thats when iquit bidding on city work.

 

[tophopper]

I don't know why some of ya'll are freaking so. I don't know Abbott's situation.

Do any of you?

Not really freaking so, but if you cant set your own prices, will you find the answer by asking online?

What does situation have to do with it? Regardless of situation, you should know how to establish hourly rates, it's common business sense.

 

[fwf]

Has any one else noticed that the companies that get the city jobs never do any private sector work? I wonder if there work quality is not high enough to satisfy the private sector. Or maybe the salesman would rather be playing golf with the city manager than bidding residential work?