ACOUSTIC CEILING · INTERIORS AND FINISHES · FIXED BY STEP 04

One line item covers four trips through the building

You bid one trip through the building. The crew has been back four times, none of it is a change order, and job cost still shows one line for ceilings.

WHY IT'S AN ACOUSTIC CEILING PROBLEM

Every overhead trade mounts to your plane. The electrician hangs fixtures from your main tees and the fitter drops heads through your grid, so grid has to be in months before tile, and tile can't drop until everyone working above it is done and gone. Drywall goes up once and stays up; a ceiling is shared infrastructure with a finished surface added at the very end, and the split is physical, so you can't opt out of it.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

Each extra mobilization is a truck, a two or three man crew, a lift move, and a foreman's day. On a 30,000 SF interior at roughly $2.50 per SF installed, three unbudgeted trips can take 6 to 10 points off a job the estimate showed at 28 percent.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

13%

CFOS target 12% for acoustic ceiling.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

21%

CFOS target 23.5% for acoustic ceiling.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 11.5% for acoustic ceiling.

Price the ceiling as four trips, because that's how it gets installed. Grid, hanger wire, and main tees go in early so the electrician can hang fixtures off your plane and the sprinkler fitter can drop heads through it. Tile can't go in until MEP trim, paint, and cleanup are done, and then it comes back out for above-ceiling inspection and again for punch. The estimate said install acoustical ceilings, lump sum, and the field ran a truck, a crew, and a lift four separate times against that one number.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Split the ceiling scope on your bid form into grid-out, lay-in, above-ceiling inspection return, and punch return, and put crew days and lift days against each one before you send the number.

STEP 02

Write the trip count into the proposal language: this price covers a stated number of trips per area, and returns beyond that bill at a per-trip rate you set up front.

STEP 03

Give every trip its own cost code so trip three and trip four are visible in job cost instead of buried inside one ceilings labor bucket.

THE FIX

Step 04: Estimating system

The estimate maps one to one onto the job cost codes, so variance means something the day it appears.

CFOS-04 · CHAPTER 4

Make the estimate and the job cost report match

What this step changes, what it depends on, and how to tell it's installed.

BENCHMARKS

Acoustic ceiling by revenue band

All 7 bands are published. The CFOS target is beside the figure up to $10M to $25M, and the 4 bands above that are labelled modeled.

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

The estimate and the actual never match

You can compare the estimate to the job cost report, but the two use different words, so the comparison means nothing.

SAME TRADE

What else costs acoustic ceiling contractors money

ACOUSTIC CEILING · CFOS-06

Everyone above your ceiling cracks tile and no one signs

Every trade that goes above your ceiling cracks tile, and you're the one replacing it, weeks later, on your own money.

ACOUSTIC CEILING · CFOS-04

Distributors bill your tile off the ship date price sheet

You bid off a March price sheet and got billed off October's, and there was never a way to lock the number.

ACOUSTIC CEILING · CFOS-06

Your longest lead item is 3 percent of the square footage

The lobby ceiling is on a boat somewhere and it's holding your last mobilization, your final pay app, and your retention.

ACOUSTIC CEILING · CFOS-01

Attic stock is bought in month one and earned in month twelve

No one pays you for the extra cartons you buy, store for a year, and leave in a closet at closeout.

ACOUSTIC CEILING · CFOS-08

Sag appears eight months later and the warranty is gone

The building wasn't conditioned when they made you install. The tile sagged eight months later, and the callback was yours.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CIVIL

Four mobilizations, one mob line item

You clear and grub in month one, come back for wet utilities, come back again for paving subgrade at closeout, and the contract still has one mobilization line.

CONCRETE

Six Trips Back for Pads and Sidewalks, One Unit Price

You were first on the site and you're still coming back for stairs, pads, curbs, and exterior flatwork, all priced inside a per-yard number that assumed you never left.

DRYWALL

You Go Back Six Times And No Ticket Gets Signed

You hung the corridor in March and you're still sending a guy back in June, one hole at a time, on somebody else's dime.

QUESTIONS

What acoustic ceiling owners ask

How to price return trips on an acoustical ceiling install?

You bid one trip through the building. The crew has been back four times, none of it is a change order, and job cost still shows one line for ceilings.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Split the ceiling scope on your bid form into grid-out, lay-in, above-ceiling inspection return, and punch return, and put crew days and lift days against each one before you send the number.

What are acoustic ceiling contractors supposed to be making?

Acoustic ceiling runs 21% gross margin, 13% overhead and 8% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is 1 point above it. The CFOS target is 11.5%.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 04, estimating system. The estimate maps one to one onto the job cost codes, so variance means something the day it appears. It comes from chapter 4 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.

OR HAVE IT HANDLED

Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for acoustic ceiling contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for acoustic ceiling contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

MASTER ELECTRICIAN · 150+ PROJECTS · $2.1B+ MANAGED

Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.