SITEWORK · CIVIL AND EARTHWORK · FIXED BY STEP 06

The Job Needs Five Mobilizations and You Priced Two

You graded that pad once and got paid for it once. The steel hauler rutted it, somebody buried spoil in it, and you graded it a second time on your own dime.

WHY IT'S A SITEWORK PROBLEM

A trade that comes once and leaves can't be damaged by the trades that follow it. Your product is the dirt everybody else works on, which turns your finished work into a haul road for the rest of the job. Rework at fine grade gets performed under a contract priced for one pass, and it gets charged to the original grading phase because no code was ever opened for it.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

You run three to five mobilizations and lowboy moves while getting paid for two, and Clean Water Act exposure runs up to $25,000 per day per violation for conditions another trade created. The rework hides inside your grading phase and corrupts the unit cost you bid the next job from.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

15%

CFOS target 14% for sitework.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

18%

CFOS target 24% for sitework.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 10% for sitework.

The site package is three to five separate visits priced like two. The sequence runs clear and grub, mass grade, underground, and building pad. Then you're off site while vertical goes up, back after dry-in for fine grade, curb, base, and paving, and back once more for topsoil, seed, and pond cleanout. Between those visits every other trade drives across your finished subgrade, tears the silt fence, buries spoil, and washes concrete out on your site. You hold the SWPPP for the whole site, so an inspector's notice of violation for somebody else's tracking or washout comes to you.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Count the mobilizations in the sequence the job really runs when you bid, and price each one with the lowboy moves included, so remobilization is a line the GC can see.

STEP 02

Open a rework and site-protection cost code on day one and have the foreman charge other trades' damage to it, with photos and dates on the daily report.

STEP 03

Send SWPPP inspection findings to the GC in writing the day they're written, identifying the trade that caused the condition, so the backcharge has a paper trail before any fine hits.

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

Sitework 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 sitework contractors money

SITEWORK · CFOS-06

Your Fastest Billable Work Comes Before the Pipe Gets There

You bill five weeks of mass grading, then watch six weeks of operators and iron wait on a wet well that couldn't be ordered until the shop drawing came back approved.

SITEWORK · CFOS-04

Permit Review Rewrites the Job You Already Signed For

The city holds the grading permit, the engineer is redlining the civil set, and your silt fence has to pass inspection before a blade touches dirt. You signed against the bid set.

SITEWORK · CFOS-02

Haul Miles Are Your Commodity Price, and They Moved

The rock price held all year. The trucking on it didn't, and then the spoil site quit taking dirt halfway through the export.

SITEWORK · CFOS-07

Retention Releases When the Grass Hits Seventy Percent

Your last retention check is stuck behind seed germinating in October, and germination depends on mother nature no matter when the work finished.

SITEWORK · CFOS-02

You Bid in Cubic Yards and Pay in Machine Hours

You hit the yardage, held the schedule, and still lost money, because yards are what you sold and machine hours are what you spent.

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 sitework owners ask

How to bill for regrading a pad another trade tore up?

You graded that pad once and got paid for it once. The steel hauler rutted it, somebody buried spoil in it, and you graded it a second time on your own dime.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Count the mobilizations in the sequence the job really runs when you bid, and price each one with the lowboy moves included, so remobilization is a line the GC can see.

What are sitework contractors supposed to be making?

Sitework runs 18% gross margin, 15% overhead and 3% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is 4 points below it. The CFOS target is 10%.

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 sitework contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for sitework contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

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

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