Construction Estimating – As a Drywall Metal Stud Sub-Contractor

Over many years working as a Drywall Sub-Contractor working for myself, as well as other companies, doing the same thing I learned many ways to check myself to be sure what I was doing was correct and that I wasn’t missing anything and yet stayed competitive in what I was doing. And also learned many shortcuts to make it faster. You learn what is expected to be included in your bid so that it is comparable to others bidding the same type of work, and you also learn to be very specific in your proposal for the bid to state exactly what your bidding as well as well as what you are not covering in your bid, one is as important as the other. And also try to make it as simple as possible while covering everything as well as possible. Anything left out can come back to be a very bitter pill to swallow later and sometimes even determine whether the job is profitable or not so that being said thoroughness is absolutely essential. Most Drywall Sub-Contractors will do the Metal Framing on a project, but very few doing the Wood Framing unless it is just a tiny little bit, I even would include the painting on a project from time to and would do the same for others from time to time. They do the hanging and finishing of the drywall and normally will also install any insulation in the walls and over drywall ceilings. Also most will also do the Acoustical Ceilings on a particular project, all though there a lot of companies out there that specialize in doing nothing but Acoustical Ceilings and they are hard to compete against if they decide to bid against you on particular project, I found it was best to combined the Acoustical Ceilings with Drywall as one price and refuse to break it up. Some General Contractors require that you tell them what every item in your bid is worth both materials and labor, they then break up a job into many pieces and it makes it extremely difficult to make a profit in doing this. I found that putting a bid on the whole project with a lump sum proposal and stating exactly what you would do and not do was the best for everyone concerned trying to work with several other companies on the same project was extremely difficult and I got to the place when one of these project came along I refused to even consider it.