How much is that going to cost?

[dodge man]

Through my work as a land surveyor I worked for a civil engineering firm. We often had people come in with a project in mind with no understanding of the scope or cost. The one that comes to mind was the chief of police who wanted to expand his gun range. He wanted hundreds of feet of berms fifteen feet high. He thought a guy with a bulldozer would come in and do it in a day. I did a rough earthwork calculation and assigned a rough dollar amount per cubic yard of earth, it was a several hundred thousand dollar project. I explained to him the scope of the project and cost. His reaction? Never mind.

Anybody else have good examples of this. I picture Eddie Walker and others who do remodels having some good ones. Same for those that do construction.

 

[orezok]

The last high school I built was $105,000,000. Schedule was a 2 year build. That averages $1,000,000 per WEEK. Most people have no idea how much work that it takes to accomplish that.

 

[5030]

I'm better at demolition myself. More fun.

 

[Jstpssng]

Most people have no idea how much work that it takes to accomplish that.

You're right. I can't comprehend it. It must take a lot of skill to coordinate everything.

 

[scootr]

As a young man I was a tradesman in many trades. When I got older I was a superintendent. There are about 15 trades that need to move through a housing unit to complete it. Most have to go through it twice. It's quite the orchestrated dance of about 200 men marching through hundreds of units.
Not to mention on any given day you will have neighboring streets dug up, Import or export of soils, paving, and a flood in this building, a fire in that building, and somebody's wife looking for her cheating husband. And the big bosses flying in to visit their money at work...

 

[4570Man]

I deal with customers having to adjust their expectations to their budget pretty often. One of the more common occurrences is cable deck railing. The stuff is stupid expensive.

 

[dodge man]

Through construction staking and material testing I got in some decent sized projects. Being a superintendent takes a special kind of person, half tough guy, half mother. I met several that were fair to good. I met one really great one who was over a Pella Window factory. I asked him how he did it and put up with it all. He said it was all an adrenaline rush.

 

[/pine]

I used to do a lot of cost estimating for marine construction jobs...mostly for commercial entities (private marinas etc.) and for municipalities...lots of bridge and underwater pipeline work...
Whenever we would get bogged down with a difficult part of the job (estimating)...our go to tag line was "it ain't no hospital"....

Just imagine (before there was software to do the grunt work) going floor by floor on a big hospital and all the specs trying not to miss anything...especially with the cost of medical equipment etc...

 

[Jstpssng]

ust imagine (before there was software to do the grunt work) going floor by floor on a big hospital and all the specs trying not to miss anything...especially with the cost of medical equipment etc...

UltraRunner is the one most likely to understand that one.

 

[Hay Dude]

I hated doing take offs on plans and estimating-work you never really get paid for. Even when you had a great feeling about getting a project from a customer, it could fall through for any number of reasons.
Drove me so crazy, I left the business pretty much for good, although I’ll still work for certain customers.