DEWATERING · CIVIL AND EARTHWORK · FIXED BY STEP 07

The Whole System Runs Before Invoice One

Wellpoints, header, pumps, tanks, and fuel are all in play before there's anything to bill, and then you wait 30 days to invoice and longer to get paid.

WHY IT'S A DEWATERING PROBLEM

Trades that install progressively spend roughly what they bill each month, so their cash curve tracks the work. Dewatering front-loads the entire system, then converts calendar time into fuel and rental with no additional installed work to point at. That means peak outflow and zero inflow fall in the same month on every single job, which is why this trade's payroll near-misses cluster at the front of the schedule.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

On a normal deployment you're funding the full system, the permit fees, the design, and the survey, plus daily fuel and rental, for 30 days before an invoice exists and longer before cash comes in.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

14%

Derived from Excavation, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 13%.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

21%

Derived from Excavation, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 23.5%.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

Derived from Excavation, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 10.5%.

Dewatering deploys completely on day one and then just runs. Before the first pay app goes out, you've already funded wellpoints and sock sand, HDPE header and the full discharge run, rented vacuum pump sets or submersibles with generators, settling or frac tanks where turbidity limits apply, permit and application fees, the hydrogeologic work behind the design, and a pre-condition survey of the neighboring structures. From the moment it fires up, fuel and rental accrue every hour of every day. Then you wait 30 days to invoice and longer to collect behind pay-when-paid. The bigger the job, the more cash the front end takes.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Price the day-one cash stack as its own number before you sign: wellpoints and sock sand, header and discharge run, pump and generator rental, frac or settling tanks, permit and application fees, hydrogeologic design, and pre-condition survey. That figure is what the job asks you to lend it.

STEP 02

Ask for a mobilization payment or stored-materials billing at buyout, and get the first pay app date and the pay-when-paid terms in writing before the equipment leaves the yard.

STEP 03

Run a rolling 13-week cash forecast keyed to pump-days and gallons of fuel per week per job, and review it the same week every month so the crunch is visible before payroll comes due.

THE FIX

Step 07: Monthly cadence

Weekly bookkeeping, cost to complete, and one CEO report, on the same days every month.

CFOS-07 · CHAPTER 7

The monthly close that takes a contractor 5 hours

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

BENCHMARKS

Dewatering 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

Profitable on the P&L, out of cash

Your P&L says you made money and your bank account says you didn't. Neither is wrong.

SAME TRADE

What else costs dewatering contractors money

DEWATERING · CFOS-06

Your Start Date Belongs to the Permit Reviewer

The GC has you mobilizing Monday, and you're still waiting on a discharge authorization and an Engineer's stamp on your means-and-methods submittal.

DEWATERING · CFOS-06

You Priced One Setup and the Job Took Five

You set up for mass excavation, then the utility run, then the structure, and then you leapfrog the pipe crew down the alignment. Somewhere in there an excavator cuts your discharge line.

DEWATERING · CFOS-04

The Geotech Set Your Price and Never Signed It

You priced pumps, fuel, and rental days against a gallons-per-minute number pulled from borings somebody else paid for, and the subsurface came in wetter.

DEWATERING · CFOS-03

Drawdown Claims Hit Months After You Demobilize

The job wrapped in spring, the margin got spent, and in the fall a neighbor calls about cracks in their slab and a well that quit producing.

DEWATERING · CFOS-04

Incidental Means Your Scope Was Never Priced

The measurement and payment section makes dewatering incidental to the excavation or pipe item, so your scope hides inside somebody else's unit price with no way to change it.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CONCRETE

Ten Jobs Used Those Forms, One Job Paid for Them

Your yard is full of panels and shoring, every job report says you made money, and the bank account disagrees. The form buy hit job one and jobs two through ten absorbed none of it.

DEMOLITION

The Scale Wants Cash Today, The GC Pays In Sixty Days

Almost everything a demolition job costs goes out in the first two weeks, and the first pay application hasn't even been submitted yet.

FLOORING

You bankroll the mill six months before you get paid

The mill wants a check before it ships, the GC won't pay for stored material, and your cash is stuck in a warehouse for four months waiting on a space that isn't ready.

QUESTIONS

What dewatering owners ask

Why is dewatering cash flow worst in the first month of a job?

Wellpoints, header, pumps, tanks, and fuel are all in play before there's anything to bill, and then you wait 30 days to invoice and longer to get paid.

What does it cost?

On a normal deployment you're funding the full system, the permit fees, the design, and the survey, plus daily fuel and rental, for 30 days before an invoice exists and longer before cash comes in.

What do I do first?

What are dewatering contractors supposed to be making?

No survey separates dewatering, so there is no figure of its own. The nearest comparable trade in the reference is Excavation, which runs 21% gross margin, 14% overhead and 7% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M, with a CFOS target of 10.5% net. Those are derived figures, not dewatering's own. Read them as the neighbourhood, and read your own job costing as the answer.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 07, monthly cadence. Weekly bookkeeping, cost to complete, and one CEO report, on the same days every month. It comes from chapter 7 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 dewatering contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What SPM The Construction CFO does, and what it costs

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

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

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