Stop 3 of 8 · Weekly
Subs and suppliers
One scope sheet per trade, three quotes lined up against it, and the gaps found before you award.
Three quotes are not comparable until the scope is
Luis emails the plans to three framers. He gets 62, 68 and 71 thousand back and spends an evening on the spread. The spread is almost never skill. One carried the shear walls, one assumed the client supplies the steel, one priced the hardware and one did not. Every minute spent on the totals before the scope is a minute on the wrong number.
The scope sheet does the work
One page per trade, written once per job: what is included with the sheet numbers, what the sub supplies against what Luis supplies, the site conditions that affect the price, the dates. Claude writes it from the plan set and the takeoff in a couple of minutes, and it is the document that makes everything after it easy.
[upload the plan set and the takeoff] Write a bid request email to the framer on the Mar Vista addition. Include the scope in ten lines or fewer with the sheet numbers, what we supply against what they supply, the site conditions that affect their price, the date bids are due and the date we need them on site. Ask for the price split into labor, material and equipment, and ask them to list anything they exclude. Under 200 words.
Lining the quotes up
[upload the three quotes and the scope sheet they bid from] One table: line item, each quote's price, and which is low. Then a second list, one line each, of what every quote excludes or leaves vague against the scope sheet. Then the questions I should ask each sub before I compare totals. Flag any line more than 15 percent under the next one so I can check it for missed scope.
The flag is the point. A price with no scope behind it is not the cheapest bid, it is the next change order.
[paste the lowest quote] Read this against the scope sheet as if you are going to have to build it. List every line where the wording could mean two things, and for each one write the sentence I should send back so the answer is in writing. Then tell me which of those, if it goes the wrong way, costs more than the gap to the next bid.
Awarding it
Write the award email to the framer we picked on the Mar Vista addition: the scope by sheet number, the price, the exclusions we agreed, the start date and the first payment trigger. Then a short second email to the two we did not pick, thanking them and saying the next set goes to them too. No apologies in either.