MASONRY · CONCRETE AND MASONRY · FIXED BY STEP 08

You go back to clean a wall you finished a year ago

Your wall sits out in the open for twelve months while every other trade works off it, and you're the one who mobilizes at the end to wash it and patch it.

WHY IT IS A MASONRY PROBLEM

No other trade leaves its finished surface exposed for the entire build. Drywall gets covered, painted, and protected within weeks, while face brick is the final product from the day it goes up and stays out there as a work surface for everyone who follows. That's why cleandown and repair is a genuine second mobilization for masonry and a punch list walk for everybody else.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

You pay for a separate mobilization, scaffold or a lift, and crew labor on a job with nothing left to bill. The backcharge for somebody else's core drill comes straight off the final pay application, which is the same check your retention is riding on.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

14%

CFOS target 13% for masonry.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

21%

CFOS target 23% for masonry.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 10% for masonry.

The spec-required final cleandown is a defined item: the proprietary cleaner the manufacturer calls for, low pressure, and no acid on certain units, all of it after everybody else is done. By then the MEP subs have cored through bond beams and grouted cells, the elevator sub has cut into the shaft wall, and somebody has parked a lift into a corner. The wall is yours, so the repair comes back to your ticket whether or not your crew made the hole. You're pricing a return trip to a job that has already been billed to a hundred percent.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Fund closeout at buyout: a cleandown and repair code with hours and equipment loaded into it from day one, sized off what your last three jobs took.

STEP 02

Photograph every cut, core, and gouge the week it appears, write the date and the responsible trade on the photo, and email it to the superintendent that day.

STEP 03

Price repair work as a change order the week you find it, and stop absorbing it at punch just because the schedule is tight.

THE FIX

Step 08: Standards and accountability

Five hours a month of owner time, spent ahead of the work.

CFOS-08 · CHAPTER 8

Five hours a month, spent ahead of the work

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

BENCHMARKS

Masonry by revenue band

Every one of the 7 bands carries the CFOS target beside the published figure.

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

PMs aren't accountable for margin

Your PMs are measured on schedule and on the client being happy. Nobody is measured on the number at the bottom.

SAME TRADE

What else costs masonry contractors money

MASONRY · CFOS-07

The whole brick package hits cash before course one

You take the full brick package in one or two drops at buyout, then lay it out over the next eight months while the cash sits in a stack on the ground.

MASONRY · CFOS-01

Three days of your best mason, buried in general labor

Your top mason and a tender spend three days building a wall that gets walked, argued over, and torn down. Not one hour of it reaches a pay application.

MASONRY · CFOS-05

Block laid in month two, retention released in month twenty

You set structural block right behind the foundation, and the ten percent held on it sits untouched until substantial completion, a year and a half later.

MASONRY · CFOS-02

Standby scaffold has no line on the pay application

Steel slipped four weeks, your scaffold stands on an elevation you can't advance, and the rental invoice still comes in right on time.

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 carries 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 Nobody Signs A Ticket

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 masonry owners ask

How to charge for masonry repairs other trades caused?

Your wall sits out in the open for twelve months while every other trade works off it, and you're the one who mobilizes at the end to wash it and patch it.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Fund closeout at buyout: a cleandown and repair code with hours and equipment loaded into it from day one, sized off what your last three jobs took.

What are masonry contractors supposed to be making?

Masonry runs 21% gross margin, 14% overhead and 7% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade sits right on it. The CFOS target is 10%.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 08, standards and accountability. Five hours a month of owner time, spent ahead of the work. It comes from chapter 8 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

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

Josh Luebker ran commercial construction projects before he ran the numbers behind them, on data centres, military bases, hospitals, and high-rises. He wrote CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System, which is an eight-step framework for commercial subcontractors, and it publishes on October 1, 2026. He is a master electrician who moved into the office and kept the field vocabulary.

Sulphur Prairie Operations LLC maintains the benchmark reference behind these figures. Every edition is reconciled against the newest CFMA survey release before it publishes here. Where a figure changes between editions, the older edition keeps its year in the title so a citation to it stays correct.