Ok paving guys

[AI Inc]

Ok so I cant drive 5 miles without driving down a freshly paved road these days ( good thing ) Stimulous money was dumped into paving as it was the easiest shovel readys on the list , and well needed.

Now its up to you guys to move that money around. Your working alot these days , no need to cut your own lawn , hire it out. How bout putting on that addition the wife always wanted, prices are down , you can get good deals. Maybe top it off with some plantings and an irrigation system.

We are counting on you guys !

[Junior M]

You should be talking to williewonka1850, I heard he's looking for a paver.. :laugh: :laugh:

[salopez]

i don't think there are too many gov paving companies here. we pave, but not enough to put additions on. those jobs are going to the big guys around here plus they are pretty much working for free just to keep busy....

[WillieWonka1850]

You should be talking to williewonka1850, I heard he's looking for a paver.. :laugh: :laugh:
Maybe...

:laugh: :laugh:

[RockSet N' Grade]

Love to help the economy out.......only the big boys are getting stimulus and they are bid so tight (cost) they are just able to keep their doors open. The small to medium sized company's are on the endangered species list. In cold country, most will be gone by January - March. Equipment dealers are shuting down left and right or "consolidating" to try and last another year........Stimulus money is a joke and party line to mislead, misinform, and misdirect.....

[ksss]

Love to help the economy out.......only the big boys are getting stimulus and they are bid so tight (cost) they are just able to keep their doors open. The small to medium sized company's are on the endangered species list. In cold country, most will be gone by January - March. Equipment dealers are shuting down left and right or "consolidating" to try and last another year........Stimulus money is a joke and party line to mislead, misinform, and misdirect.....


Very true,

One small example. There is a road widening project here that last year bid for 5 mil. They rebid this year. Winning bid 2.5 mil. and it was not just one low ball bid that won. There was only 8k separating the two lowest bids.

It used to be the engineers estimate was a good place to start and they went up from there. Now seldom do the bids exceed the engineers estimates. Sign of the times I guess.

[Mr. Rain]

Very true,

One small example. There is a road widening project here that last year bid for 5 mil. They rebid this year. Winning bid 2.5 mil. and it was not just one low ball bid that won. There was only 8k separating the two lowest bids.

It used to be the engineers estimate was a good place to start and they went up from there. Now seldom do the bids exceed the engineers estimates. Sign of the times I guess.

I hate to see companies working for cost or close to it, that doesn't help anything in the big picture. However, it doesn't hurt my feelings much to see some of the excesses and pork trimmed out of the system by competitive bidding processes. So our fearless "leader" is actully saving us millions of dollars by spending billions that we don't have. What???:confused:

[Dirt Digger2]

we just landed a $72million dollar "paving job" about an hour ago....its concrete paving though

[bobcat_ron]

That's all fine and dandy, but here in BC, LOWEST BIDDER WINS THE CONTRACT.

Some people drive to work for 2 hours just to lose money, every day, and they are the low ballers.

[CAT powered]

My local Deere dealership has been trying to stave off layoffs for as long as possible. They were to the point where they had service techs painting the shop and parts room walls just to keep them busy.

I recently had their road man out working on my haul truck because I couldn't figure out WTF was up with the ignition. Anyways he told me that they are facing layoffs soon. It is a union shop and he's been there for a long time so he's not too worried about his job, but he says some of the younger guys will be out of work by end of August.

This "Cash for clunkers" program seems to be helping out the car dealerships. In reality it was just a thinly veiled stimulus package.

If you look at the amount of energy required to produce a new vehicle, transport it to the dealer lot, clean it, and then sell it I bet it'd take 20 years of driving it to recoup the energy expenditure of producing it rather than drivin a less fuel efficient vehicle. Now that's just a WAG I haven't actually done the math on it. A friend of mine who is a salesman at a Massachusetts Ford dealership says they've already got a 100,000$ owed to them by the government because of the program.

The companies that had to have new trucks and new equipment all the time are the ones going under now. They financed all their stuff and were able to keep their heads above water so to speak when times were good. Now that the bottom has dropped out they are going under because they weighed themselves down with all that debt.

Now someone like myself who runs old equipment and has it paid for the most part is a lot better off. All I need to do is pay the note on my trommel screen and on my pickup truck. I was able to sell a small chunk of the farm recently and pay off the mortgage on the remaining part and lost very little assessed value on the property.

So someone who runs light and lean will survive in today's market. Someone who is weighed down with debt and other obligations will not survive. Plain and simple.

[Gravel Rat]

Ron is right its getting bad in B.C. . There are companies from out of town underbidding and winning jobs where I live. They are bidding low enough they are making no profit just keep the guys working.

One company I won't say the name had a little mishap well that blew any profit they were going to make.

In my mind the lowest bidder should never be accepted. Low bid poor quality project.

There was a piddly waterline job up for bid around here the muni never seen so much interest in such a small job. Some of these contractors would have to come well over 200kms away :dizzy:

Another waterline job was up for bid and the muni decided not to take the lowest bidder and took a local contractor Thumbs Up

A friend of Ron and I has shown us some jobs that has been bid on and what people are bidding. It is awfull these guys are bidding for fuel and wages.

[Dirt Digger2]

[QUOTE=Gravel Rat;3119272]
In my mind the lowest bidder should never be accepted. Low bid poor quality project.

QUOTE]

your talking out your ass again....that isn't the case at all

[Duffster]

Another waterline job was up for bid and the muni decided not to take the lowest bidder and took a local contractor Thumbs Up



That is pretty much illegal here.

[ksss]

[QUOTE=Gravel Rat;3119272]
In my mind the lowest bidder should never be accepted. Low bid poor quality project.

QUOTE]

your talking out your ass again....that isn't the case at all


Ditto:

What would the deciding factor be? Who knows who? We know how that works. If the winning bid is a competent contractor they should get the job. It sucks that everyone is killing each other, but thats what happens in time like these, kinda like playing musical chairs. There is only so much work for way too many contractors. I think it is safe to say, that is the case across the USA and apparently Can. as well.

[BIGBEN2004]

I hope our states can get their acts together. California is Bankrupt and my state of Maryland owes the local big asphalt company that paves the states highways is owed $55 Million from good old Maryland and is in chance to go under. Until those things start to get straightened out people are staying tight on their money around here and many like me Don't have any extra money.

[Gravel Rat]

Around here the lowest bidders have been doing sloppy work. Like I said one of the out of town companies didn't know the area they screwed up and it cost them big time.

I don't know about your area but there is playing favorites that happens. If bid tenders are put out a regular contractor will sometimes get the job.

In B.C. jobs up for bids are usually forestry road deactivatin or building roads, power pole installations etc.

There are alot of jobs like water lines that are being bid on by companies from cities that don't have any idea what it takes with rural water lines.

Here we have rock and these guys don't know that you need to blast. So when they start digging and its crap there is solid rock 16 inches under the dirt it needs dynamite. Now they are into 10-20 grand worth of blasting they didn't account for. The job is a total loss for the out of town contractor. The local contractors are laughing like h*ll they put a bid in that covered blasting.

Usually these out of town companies do one job and never come back they find out it is a total loss. Underbidding doesn't get them anywhere and if they put in a competitive bid they won't win because they need to add living out allowances etc.

[CAT powered]

So I fail to see the problem if they do one job and leave town forever.

Makes it so that you get local guys there more which seems to be what you want.

In times like we're in now I'd take a job to make fuel and payroll. What would you have them do? Sit on their a**ses because they can't make a large profit on every job? I'd take a job to pay my bills before I sat on my a** all day.

[Gravel Rat]

The guys that do one job are the ones that have left with no money made it doesn't pay to bid on jobs out of town when your not familliar with the area.

Lowball the bid and try do the job and end up loosing a big chunk of money.

When the next bid comes around to do a similar job a local contractor has ended up with it.

[RockSet N' Grade]

CatPowered.........and there in lies the delimma. Alot of guys are taking jobs at their "perceived cost" of just fuel and payroll. Buddy of mine did that all summer, now has nothing but worn out equipment that needs repairs and no savings. There has got to be a margin in there to set aside, and right now that seems to be gone.

[stuvecorp]

CatPowered.........and there in lies the delimma. Alot of guys are taking jobs at their "perceived cost" of just fuel and payroll. Buddy of mine did that all summer, now has nothing but worn out equipment that needs repairs and no savings. There has got to be a margin in there to set aside, and right now that seems to be gone.

I kind of have done some of that this year and after awhile it takes it toll - on me at least. You work that hard for that little, really seems stupid. So today I cut bait on some stuff, scares me to say no but I feel a little better. Time will tell if that was smart.:confused:

[tbi]

Around here the lowest bidders have been doing sloppy work. Like I said one of the out of town companies didn't know the area they screwed up and it cost them big time.

I don't know about your area but there is playing favorites that happens. If bid tenders are put out a regular contractor will sometimes get the job.

In B.C. jobs up for bids are usually forestry road deactivatin or building roads, power pole installations etc.

There are alot of jobs like water lines that are being bid on by companies from cities that don't have any idea what it takes with rural water lines.

Here we have rock and these guys don't know that you need to blast. So when they start digging and its crap there is solid rock 16 inches under the dirt it needs dynamite. Now they are into 10-20 grand worth of blasting they didn't account for. The job is a total loss for the out of town contractor. The local contractors are laughing like h*ll they put a bid in that covered blasting.

Usually these out of town companies do one job and never come back they find out it is a total loss. Underbidding doesn't get them anywhere and if they put in a competitive bid they won't win because they need to add living out allowances etc.

Sounds like part of the problem is your bidding process. Poor quality of bid documents, lack of qualified construction managers and not qualifing the bidders.

[bobcat_ron]

Sounds like part of the problem is your bidding process. Poor quality of bid documents, lack of qualified construction managers and not qualifing the bidders.

Trust me, it's the people accepting the bids, even the different levels of government are affected by the economy, and they don't get the Federal funds they need, so to save money, the use the lowest bidder.
And they don't care either, as long as their 10% bid bond cheque clears, the company must do all the work specified or the job goes to someones else.

There are companies bidding on jobs here that aren't even from this Province, and they aren't even taking into consideration the housing costs for the employees, and if the companies that are doing the job are from Alberta, then most likely they get the job as their bid price has less tax on it as we pay both the GST and PST taxes here.
Should be interesting when the new Harmonized sales tax come into effect next year.

[Gravel Rat]

One thing about it when it comes to paving jobs there is only two paving companies on the West Coast of B.C. that really can compete is BA blacktop and Cewe.

The major infrastructure jobs Kiewit seems to win most of those bids.

[tbi]

Trust me, it's the people accepting the bids, even the different levels of government are affected by the economy, and they don't get the Federal funds they need, so to save money, the use the lowest bidder.
And they don't care either, as long as their 10% bid bond cheque clears, the company must do all the work specified or the job goes to someones else.

There are companies bidding on jobs here that aren't even from this Province, and they aren't even taking into consideration the housing costs for the employees, and if the companies that are doing the job are from Alberta, then most likely they get the job as their bid price has less tax on it as we pay both the GST and PST taxes here.
Should be interesting when the new Harmonized sales tax come into effect next year.

Did you understand the part about qualifying the bid? I didn't think so.

[bobcat_ron]

Did you understand the part about qualifying the bid? I didn't think so.

That part too is thrown out the window, I have met people in the industry that are the type that will spend 5 bucks to save 50 cents, those are the really under qualified people.