PLUMBING · MECHANICAL AND LIFE SAFETY · FIXED BY STEP 01

You Restart the Job Five Times and Price One of Them

Site utilities, underslab, rough per deck, top out, trim, and final test are six visits, and the estimate priced one mobilization.

WHY IT'S A PLUMBING PROBLEM

Most subs mobilize once, maybe twice. Plumbing follows the structure of the building itself, so the schedule pulls you back every time a new condition is ready, and the time between visits gets filled with other jobs. The restart cost is real labor, it happens five times, and it hides completely because the whole contract runs on one cost code with no split between underground, rough, and trim.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

Every remobilization after the first is unpriced labor, commonly 3 to 6 percent of the labor budget burned before a wrench turns. Stack that across five phases and the job that estimated at target margin never had a chance.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

16%

CFOS target 15% for plumbing.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

25%

CFOS target 27.5% for plumbing.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 12.5% for plumbing.

One plumbing contract is four to six separate crew mobilizations, and it gets bid, billed, and cost coded as a single job with a single start in it. Site utilities and underground come first, then underslab, then above ground rough on every deck, then top out and risers, then trim and set fixtures, then chlorination and final test. Each of those is a full restart with new layout, new staging, a new material drop, and a crew finding its rhythm again on conditions that changed since the last visit. Somebody else schedules every one of them, usually with short notice, usually stacked against another job the same crew is already working. Aside from concrete, no trade comes and goes off a building this many times.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Break every job into phase codes for underground, underslab, rough, top out, trim, and test, and make the field report hours to the phase the crew is working in.

STEP 02

Add a mobilization line to the estimate template with a unit price per trip, and state the number of trips you assumed in the bid clarifications.

STEP 03

Pull last year's closed jobs and compare estimated labor to what each phase cost, so the next bid uses your real restart cost and not a hopeful lump sum.

THE FIX

Step 01: Job cost structure

Seven cost categories and three levels of granularity, built so the estimate and the ledger use the same words.

CFOS-01 · CHAPTER 1

Job cost codes that match how you bid the work

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

BENCHMARKS

Plumbing 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

Cost codes the field ignores

You have 200 cost codes. The crews use four of them, and one is called Miscellaneous.

SAME TRADE

What else costs plumbing contractors money

PLUMBING · CFOS-06

Your Water Heater Deposit Goes Out Eight Months Early

The domestic hot water plant is 30 weeks out, the rep wants a big number at release, and the unit doesn't get set until the mechanical room is finished at the very end of the job.

PLUMBING · CFOS-06

Concrete Is Booked Thursday and Inspection Opens Monday

The underground is holding test and ready to cover, the pump truck is scheduled, and the inspector's first open slot is after the pour date.

PLUMBING · CFOS-04

Copper and Resin Move Apart and Your Bid Covers One

You bid copper in March, bought it at buyout in September, and the escalation language you fought for only protects half the scope.

PLUMBING · CFOS-07

You Earn It in Month Two and Collect in Month Twenty-Six

You were in the dirt before the steel got there, and you'll see that retention when the building opens.

PLUMBING · CFOS-08

Every Leak Comes Back to Your Job Cost

The concrete crew knocked the stub-ups off layout, somebody put a drywall screw through the copper, and the backcharge still comes to you.

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 plumbing owners ask

How many times does a plumber mobilize on one commercial job?

Site utilities, underslab, rough per deck, top out, trim, and final test are six visits, and the estimate priced one mobilization.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Break every job into phase codes for underground, underslab, rough, top out, trim, and test, and make the field report hours to the phase the crew is working in.

What are plumbing contractors supposed to be making?

Plumbing 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 01, job cost structure. Seven cost categories and three levels of granularity, built so the estimate and the ledger use the same words. It comes from chapter 1 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 plumbing contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for plumbing contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

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

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