Bids-unit cost

Every few years a few of my clients get the "we need to BID this stuff out" bug. Most of these clients have a good list of qualified firms they turn to for surveying needs and our fees are hourly. There is usually enough to keep everybody busy in their respective parts of the State.

Why they do this is probably some lame effort by the bean-counters to place unit prices on some of the work we do. I've seen 200' of R/W that had 40 or more hours of surveying involved and I've seen a half a mile that had 8 hours. We try and try to explain to them the work involved has so many factors that aren't readily apparent until you actually get into the project.

Most of the other firms are like me. When they want a bid, we all go so sky high it shuts them up for another 365 days...:pinch:

lol, that may happen here too, the only bad thing is that we did one at the unit cost, but it was outside a brand new subdivision we just finished, had it basically done,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I rarely tell anyone the true nature of what I bill out for a day or hour because they are my clients and would simply take it out of context and not understand.

I usually survey on a fee basis that relates to who the client is, where the property is, the scope of the actual survey and the product that I prepare. There are included the number of time being on site and travel for research and any supplies that are unique to that job or if I need to obtain a special tool to complete.

In my mind, I have spent umpteen thousand dollars and many years classroom, study and school of hard knocks to obtain the license and experience that I bring with me every day and the amount I charge generally does not have anything to do with hours put in on the job.

It was like the caller that wanted to pay $200 for some elevations in the middle of nowhere. Nobody is going to invest $50k into RTK and go around dishing out elevations for a few hundred dollars.

I was gone from the house for 3hrs Saturday and surveyed 2 acres at the end of roads and services in a lovely setting along the Sulphur River and where I could only hear the sounds of nature for a $850 title survey. I had already located all the monuments years ago and made one setup to restore a bent rod and set a new reference that a had been taken out to open up a mailbox turnin. Found all the existing monuments and took a new measurement to confirm their locations and I was on the road and back home in time to see Texas beat Baylor.

I was busy saturday, texas beat baylor? does that save the texas coach's job?

MightyMoe, post: 347758, member: 700 wrote: I was busy saturday, texas beat baylor? does that save the texas coach's job?

Charlie Strong, the Longhorn's new coach, is in there for a while. I think he's eventually going to make them a powerhouse again.

Now Mack Brown, the previous coach that left apparently due to poor team performance, went away a few years ago and I've seen him sitting at the desk for ESPN's Game Day. I guess work is where you find it.

That has got to be an easy gig.

I went to Baylor to get a dog and pony show when my son was looking at schools, I really liked the program, son had other ideas.

Now Waco,,,,,,,,,,well, I just didn't know what to make of it...........

We spent a few days in Austin, enjoyed the batsB-)

At that time Baylor was just starting to be relevant in sports but it's odd seeing Texas UPSET Baylor

MightyMoe, post: 347780, member: 700 wrote: At that time Baylor was just starting to be relevant in sports but it's odd seeing Texas UPSET Baylor

Usual Big 12 mixup. Texas beat both OU and Baylor and OU wound up Big 12 Champs. A lot of people downplayed Texas' ability this year (like our OU football team...!) but Charlie's got an agenda. Look out for the next three years, he and the team all have something to prove.