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weedyacres

Adventures in contracting (sigh....)

weedyacres
15 years ago

We've just gone through the bidding process for a room addition onto our house. A few weeks ago I promised I'd post the details about what we did and how it went, so here they are. I'm very open to input/feedback from those of you in the know as well as questions from those of you contemplating similar projects. We're not out of the woods yet, as you'll see.

First of all, some background. We're avid DIY-ers, intrepid enough to take on a whole-house remodel and learn things we've never tried. With a room addition, however, part of which is 2 stories, it entails a lot of work that is beyond what would be wise for us to take on, so we decided to find a contractor to build us a shell and we'd finish the inside. We started a year ago, made some inquiries to people who advertised in the paper or who were referred by friends, and asked for bids/estimates (at the time rather uneducated about the process). We talked to probably 5 contractors who came out and looked at our vision. Two never called back/returned my follow-up call, one gave us a really high bid, because I think the project was over his head, and two gave us concrete bids/estimates. We picked the one that we felt a good rapport with and was also cheaper, but when we were getting close to finalizing the design, he flaked and quit returning calls.

Figuring we were approaching this the wrong way, we went back to square one. We asked around for another batch of referrals, found 4, and all of them said "draw plans and then we'll bid." So we drew up plans, and I bought Amy Johnston's book "What Your Contractor Can't Tell You" (recommended here by mightyanvil, I believe) and decided to follow her advice.

So 3 weeks ago, we called all 4 back and invited them to come get a copy of the plans and gave them a bid form. The bid invite letter outlined the following:

1. Scope of work: per plans (extremely detailed, including everything that needed to be demo'd, which portions we'd be doing, cut-outs of the footings and framing, etc.), specifying they'd build the shell, we'd finish the interior. We'd supply windows and doors, they'd supply all other materials.

2. Schedule: we're ready now, but schedule will be mutually agreed, please propose the most cost-effective schedule.

3. Bid due date: 3 weeks later

4. Errors/ambiguities: let us know anything that doesn't look right and we'll correct it for everyone.

5. Contract: AIA contract A101 (also recommended by several here)

6. Insurance: Need to show proof of work comp and general liability

7. Intent to award to the lowest bidder, reserving the right to reject any bids. (I'm aware of the danger of picking a lowball bid)

Bid Form requested:

1. Fixed bid, broken down by the 8 of the 16 divisions that applied to the project.

2. Proposed subcontractors

3. Proposed construction schedule

4. Proposed draw schedule

5. Alternate prices for two iterations of the designed plans (mix of siding/brick)

6. Change order formula

All of this was following Amy's advice.

The results: we got one bid back. (that sound you hear is me banging my head against the wall)

Contractor A: Single-crew outfit that generally builds homes, called about a week after picking up the plans and said he got a big job, so wouldn't be able to fit us in. He had expressed concern about the AIA contract in our meeting, and also told us he probably wouldn't be the lowest bidder.

Contractor B: Multi-crew outfit that generally does remodels. They returned the bid the evening before the due date with everything filled in as requested. Bid: $55K, start date 2 months out, total time to completion 2 months.

Contractor C: Single-crew outfit that generally builds homes but is located about 45 minutes away. I called him the day after bids were due and he said he had picked up some work locally, preferred not to work at this distance, and would return the plans via my friend who recommended him.

Contractor D: Multi-crew outfit that does a lot of remodeling, structural rework, house moving. They picked up the plans and bid sheet 2 weeks after my initial call, the owner called me the next day and expressed concerns about using the AIA contract and the "lowest bidder" clause. We talked through his concerns (suffiently and professionally, I had thought) and he said he'd give some thought to whether they'd bid or not. He called me back 2 days later (4 days before bid due date) and said they looked at their schedule and given that they wouldn't be able to start for a couple months, they didn't think they could meet our desires, so wouldn't bid.

So here we sit, at a loss for what went wrong. The 55K bid is probably 50-75% higher than what we'd expect (we're talking a shell for 400 square feet of living space). The first time around, the guy we didn't move forward with (big area remodeler with a decent reputation) bid $65K for the whole package including finishing the inside, $20K less if we did the finishing. Plus this time around, the windows were excluded from the package, making last time's guy around $35K. We hadn't included him in the bid, because he's got a reputation for high $$, so we didn't think he'd be competitive. I called him today, and will ask him to tweak his original bid and put it in the mix.

Any other ideas? What did we do wrong? Are we raising red flags to contractors that we don't know about? Is this just par for the course in the industry? Our meetings were friendly and professional, we asked them what they wanted in a good customer, so had good conversations about defining needs up front, maintaining good communication, and baking them cookies.

Any other advice? We're considering going the route of finding subs and GCing the thing ourselves, but man, we were really looking forward to paying someone else to do a big shot of work real quick.

Thanks for any and all input and questions. I'm feeling rather discouraged right about now.

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