I need help with commercial estimate

[heussnert@aol.com]

I have been doing residential for about 5 yrs. I now have the chance to bid on a church. The property is about 4ac. with three large buildings totaling about 15,000 sq ft. a 10,000 sq ft playground that will require a lot of trimming. There are also about 60 small trees and fence post to trim around but not much to edge. There also may be about 10,000 sq ft to blow off. I was told that the last company took about 4 hr to just mow with 2 48" commercial mowers. Can someone please give me a idea on how or how much to charge for a job this size. I am in the Ocala, FL area.

[sikagrass]

Size matters when you start doing the bigger properties.What kind of equipment are you planning on using?I try to break it into sections and then add the price for the sections together and it isnt foolproof but it gets the bid sheet in the envelope. Ive also snooped up what the other guys charged and then added a bit. Nothing hurts worse than leaving money on the table,but only you know your formula of cost, time to do the work,and add profit.Sounds like a good oppurtunity for you,make sure you bid high enough to make some bucks on it.

[ed2hess]

I hope you have better luck with the church bid than we have over the years. We never got one of the bids we made......persons in the church always did the yard they just needed a price. Hope you are in the church!

[sikagrass]

Ed Ive seen that trick before too.They had me give a bid, then paid some guy down on his luck to do it with a 21 and a ryobi for the same price.

[Uranus]

I hope you have better luck with the church bid than we have over the years. We never got one of the bids we made......persons in the church always did the yard they just needed a price. Hope you are in the church!

You have to watch out for real estate agents too. They get a bid for some repair work and you never hear from them again. They use the bid for the buyers to negotiate the price down and you never see a dime. FREE ESTAMATE :laugh: Back to the topic though. 4 hour X 2 men = $400 for me. I doubt you'll see that from a chuch. $300 range and hope you get notice from church members.

[fiveoboy01]

Doesn't Florida have some program where you can get a license to apply just non-selective herbicides like Roundup?

You could roundup the fence posts and some of the playground equipment.

Do YOU have 2 48" mowers? 8 man hours = 450-480 bucks for me per week. I could care less if it's a church. They suck enough money out of people anyhow. They can pay for it.