The Rental Clock Continues Through Every Structural Delay
Frames, glass, sealant, and the final water test are separate trips to the same building, and the swing stage bills every month in between.
Most subs mobilize once and stay until they're done, so their equipment cost tracks their labor hours. Glazing installs the envelope in stages separated by other people's work, and the access equipment can't leave between stages without a rigging engineer, a re-permit, and another crane pick. You're renting the right to reach the tenth floor whether the tenth floor is ready or not.
The size of it
A single swing stage rig plus rigging engineering costs several thousand a month and a mast climber costs more, so three dead months across two mobilizations is $30K to $60K that was bid as one continuous stretch. Expensing rental to the period means the estimate never learns and the same hole opens on the next tower.
You can't start until the structure is topped out, surveyed, and the embeds or anchor clips set by the concrete or steel contractor are in and in the right place. Then the scope splits into three to five separate mobilizations: frame erection, then glass, then wet seals and sealant, then punch and the final field water test at closeout. Each trip needs swing stages, monorails, mast climbers, boom lifts, vacuum lifters, or a glazing robot, and that gear is on a monthly rental clock. The clock continues through structural delays, weather days, and misplaced-embed arguments, and no one credits you for the idle weeks.
Three moves, in order
Step 02: Equipment cost basis
A correct internal rate per machine covering ownership, maintenance, fuel, and transport, charged to the projects that used it.
What else costs curtain wall and glazing contractors money
The same mechanism in other trades
What curtain wall and glazing owners ask
How to bid swing stage and mast climber rental on a glazing job?
Frames, glass, sealant, and the final water test are separate trips to the same building, and the swing stage bills every month in between.
What does it cost?
A single swing stage rig plus rigging engineering costs several thousand a month and a mast climber costs more, so three dead months across two mobilizations is $30K to $60K that was bid as one continuous stretch. Expensing rental to the period means the estimate never learns and the same hole opens on the next tower.
What do I do first?
Assign a loaded monthly rate to every access unit and post it to the job for every month it stays on site, including the months your crew is idle.
What are curtain wall and glazing contractors supposed to be making?
Curtain wall and glazing has 27% gross margin, 18% overhead and 9% net profit after taxes at $1M to $5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is 2 points above it. The CFOS target is 12.5%.
Which part of the system fixes it?
The step is number 02, equipment cost basis. A correct internal rate per machine covering ownership, maintenance, fuel, and transport, charged to the projects that used it. It comes from chapter 2 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, and CONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for curtain wall and glazing contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, led by the same author.
What a fractional CFO does for curtain wall and glazing contractors
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.