KICK said:
making light of my FIL without knowing his history, without knowing your history either, just that you make estimates for a GC.
for all any of us know your employer might build sheds for peoples back yards.... seeing as you are employed by someone else and my FIL does live by his wits and has been self employed for many years, be careful what you compare your portion of the construction trade to.
My point was my SIL also has a GC license,, and she aint the sharpest chisel in the toolbox.
So you type of guys kill me....... you guys are the experts at everything and nobody else knows anything..... participating on many boards allows me to see a common type of behavior on all these forums...... namely one guy who knows something and his followers who tend to agree with anything he says...... but if someone who takes a contrary opinion and doesn't back away from it or go away this someone gets called names, taken to task and shouted down by the camp followers.....
someone asked what this had to do with fuel use, answer this doesn't have anything to do with fuel use. just the thread starter wanted to estimate fuel use and now we are off on a tangent over whether someone can be within 2% or not on an estimate...
depends on what your estimating..... intangibles abound in farming, apparently construction work is simpler and you can know exactly how much it will cost,within 2%, right down to the last tube of caulk. LOL.
And STILL, you INSIST on pointing out the fact you don't really have a clue....
There's a little difference between a $175,000,000 hospital addition/ remodeling and a backyard shed.
We closed the books on the hospital expansion this past thursday. It came in UNDER budget..... by 1.60%. No one in our office was suprised. That's the way we do business. We have the occasional cost over-run. Far more often than not, we don't.
Just about anyone with a hardhat and a pick-up truck can call themselves a GC and make a few bucks when times are really good. When times get lean, those guys end up handing out fries at McDonalds drive up windows. Recent times WERE good. Lets see how the "get me a license and call myself a contractor" types do now that things aren't so lucrative.
You said it yourself, you SIL isn't "the sharpest knife in the drawer". So why would anyone use that as an example of what the assume is "typical"? Most SUCCESSFUL general contractors are shrewd businessmen (or women) They don't operate with haphazzard, wild guess estimates. The firm I work for has been in business for over 120 years. We have built schools, hospitals, chemical plants, even a 36 story high rise. You don't last long in that arena by submitting a "guess" instead of a legitimate, accurate estimate.
There's a HUGE difference between "having a GC license" and being a general contractor. I'm painting our kitchen today. Can I call myself a painter? NOPE. That doesn't make me a painter or a painting contractor. It's all about knowing what you're doing and being able to do it RIGHT on a consistant basis.
Your last paragraph is a real laugher! You have ZERO credability on the subject, site examples of people who you admit aren't real bright as "typical", have a history of posting comments that fly in the face of accepted, well known fact. I don't need to call you "names". You hung your own reputation around your neck. The fact you don't know enough to realize you're wrong isn't the fault of "the camp followers" ( who happens to be a contracor also).
