MECHANICAL · MECHANICAL AND LIFE SAFETY · FIXED BY STEP 06

Nine Trips To The Job, Two Of Them Billable

Your crew makes nine separate trips to that building, from underslab to punch. The schedule of values has one line on it that says rough-in.

WHY IT'S A MECHANICAL PROBLEM

A drywall crew comes in, hangs, finishes, and leaves. Mechanical work is embedded in every phase from the slab to the ceiling grid, so the schedule keeps calling you back, and your equipment doubles as the building's temporary heat while other trades finish. Both the return trips and the temp use are costs created by the schedule, and neither one has an SOV line waiting for it.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

You eat four to six unbudgeted mobilizations at $3K to $6K each on a mid-size job, plus temp-use wear no change order was written for. That's $25K to $40K of cost with no billing line attached to it.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

16%

CFOS target 15% for mechanical.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

25%

CFOS target 27.5% for mechanical.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 12.5% for mechanical.

The trips run underslab, deck sleeves and hangers, overhead rough-in, roof curbs before the roofer dries in, unit sets on a crane day the GC picks, ceiling trim after the drywall, start-up, TAB, and punch. That's eight or nine discrete visits, each with its own travel, lift rental, and foreman ramp-up time, and the schedule of values bills by system percentage, so remobilization cost never touches a billing line. Then the GC asks to run the permanent equipment for temporary heat during drywall, and you absorb construction filters, coil cleaning, and belt wear on units the owner has not accepted. The warranty clock on that equipment starts running months before the owner takes the building.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Write the full mobilization list into the SOV at buyout and put a dollar value on each one: underslab, sleeves and hangers, overhead rough, roof curbs, unit sets, trim, start-up, TAB, and punch.

STEP 02

Open a cost code per mobilization so travel, lift rental, and foreman ramp post where they really occur, and you can price the next job off history.

STEP 03

Send a temporary heat letter before the GC turns a unit on: construction filters, coil cleaning, belt replacement, and warranty start date at owner acceptance, priced as a change order and signed before startup.

THE FIX

Step 06: Project management

Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone chasing them.

CFOS-06 · CHAPTER 6

Billing and change orders that hold without chasing

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

BENCHMARKS

Mechanical 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 change orders you did and never billed

The field did the work. The paperwork never caught up. Ninety days later there is no record that proves it happened.

SAME TRADE

What else costs mechanical contractors money

MECHANICAL · CFOS-01

You Pay For The Chillers Six Months Before You Bill Them

The deposit clears in March, the balance clears at shipment, and the first pay app covering any of it goes in around August. Your credit line funds the months between.

MECHANICAL · CFOS-06

Fab Release Is Gated By Two Clocks You Don't Own

The coil line has nothing to cut because the engineer has held your submittals for five weeks and the coordination model is still bouncing. You pay shop payroll either way.

MECHANICAL · CFOS-05

The Retention Waits On A Test Only You Can Pass

Retention releases against the commissioning agent's sign off, and the system being tested is yours. A building accepted in July can't prove its heating until the weather turns.

MECHANICAL · CFOS-02

Prefab Spools Spend Money Three Months Before Install

The shop cuts duct and welds spools in month three for work that installs in month six. If that cost goes to overhead, every job reads rich and the shop reads like dead weight.

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 mechanical owners ask

How to bill for multiple mobilizations on a mechanical job?

Your crew makes nine separate trips to that building, from underslab to punch. The schedule of values has one line on it that says rough-in.

What does it cost?

You eat four to six unbudgeted mobilizations at $3K to $6K each on a mid-size job, plus temp-use wear no change order was written for. That's $25K to $40K of cost with no billing line attached to it.

What do I do first?

Write the full mobilization list into the SOV at buyout and put a dollar value on each one: underslab, sleeves and hangers, overhead rough, roof curbs, unit sets, trim, start-up, TAB, and punch.

What are mechanical contractors supposed to be making?

Mechanical runs 25% gross margin, 16% overhead and 9% net profit before taxes at $1M–$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 06, project management. Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone chasing them. It comes from chapter 6 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 mechanical contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for mechanical contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

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

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