Just got off the phone with a residential builder that called me for the first time out of the blue. Don't know how he got my number, never worked with him before. This will be the first job he's done in this municipality.
He's obtained a "2 stage" building permit from the local municipality. The first stage allows him to prepare the footing and stem on the foundation. The second stage permit is issued basically after an elevation cert is performed to insure the FF is above a pre-determined minimum, stated in the first stage permit. He needs to know how "high" above the existing grade he needs to make the foundation. He needs it yesterday....his dirt man is on site and needs to know how high to build the pad.
It's relatively close to the office and will require two trips for the crew (one to set a BM, and one to shoot the foundation once it's poured) and the office time to prepare the cert. I was feeling generous and quoted him 1000 bucks. He choked.
Now these are 500K and up homes. He started acting like all I needed to do was type him a letter and my price was just way too high. I asked him what would happen if the foundation was poured too low. He said he'd have to take it out then and rebuild it. I asked him how big the lawsuit would be if he DID manage to get the house built too low, and the future owner sued him because he couldn't get flood insurance...And I kindly explained acceptance of the liability of that magnitude did not come cheap. I told him my price was figured on crew time, office time and overhead. I also told him he was welcome to "look" around.
After our conversation I believe he understood a little better what in the world it is that surveyors do. He emailed his billing information to me.
I guess explaining yourself was better than saying "$10 to type the letter, and $990 to sign it".
I need to use that $10/$990 explanation. I like that!
I always find it amusing when a developer will be building a several million dollar project and they choke on a $2,000 survey bill.