SWPPP AND EROSION CONTROL · CIVIL AND EARTHWORK · FIXED BY STEP 06

Miss the seeding window and you buy the job twice

Grading took too long, the fall window closed, and now you're paying for temporary cover and inspections all winter waiting on spring to seed.

WHY IT'S A SWPPP AND EROSION CONTROL PROBLEM

Plenty of trades wait on long lead items, but a switchgear date can be paid to move and a soil temperature can't. Your long lead constraint is a calendar written by soil temperature and daylight, and it closes whether or not the GC finished grading. Germination can't be expedited. That's why a two-week grading slip on your scope turns into a season.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

One missed window converts a single seeding mobilization into temporary cover, four to six months of BMP maintenance and inspections, and a second full seeding mobilization the following season. The bid priced one seeding. The job buys two, plus a winter of maintenance no one is paying for.

OVERHEAD AT $1M to $5M

14%

CFOS target 13% for SWPPP and erosion control.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M to $5M

24%

CFOS target 26.5% for SWPPP and erosion control.

NET PROFIT AT $1M to $5M

10%

CFOS target 13.5% for SWPPP and erosion control.

Cool-season seed won't germinate applied into July heat, and warm-season seed won't germinate into cool spring soil. Hydroseed washes off the slope if rain falls inside the 24 to 48 hour cure on the bonded fiber matrix. What's left is a permanent seeding window of a few weeks, twice a year. The GC's grading schedule decides when finish grade is available, and finish grade rarely becomes available inside that window. The permit doesn't flex for it either: stabilization has to be initiated immediately in areas inactive 14 or more days and completed within 7 to 14 days, so you install temporary cover, maintain it, and come back in spring for the seeding you already bid.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Put both seeding windows on the same calendar as the grading schedule and mark the last date finish grade has to be available for each area.

STEP 02

The day grading goes past that date, send written notice with a price attached: temporary stabilization, the monthly cost through winter, and the second mobilization.

STEP 03

Bid temporary stabilization and extended maintenance as their own line items with a stated monthly rate, so the change order has a number to point at.

THE FIX

Step 06: Project management

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

CFOS-06 · CHAPTER 6

Billing and change orders that hold without follow up

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

BENCHMARKS

SWPPP and erosion control 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 SWPPP and erosion control contractors money

SWPPP AND EROSION CONTROL · CFOS-01

The job stops billing and keeps spending for a year

The last pay app went out a year ago and the job is still spending money. Inspections, BMP removal, and a reseed trip all add cost to a job your WIP already called finished.

SWPPP AND EROSION CONTROL · CFOS-03

Weather owns your repair schedule; the permit owns the clock

It rains Tuesday night, the crew is out fixing fence Wednesday morning, and there's no pay item anywhere for that truck.

SWPPP AND EROSION CONTROL · CFOS-06

Your mobilization depends on a clock the engineer owns

The GC wants fence in Monday, the NOI is still at the agency, and your crew has already been scheduled and released twice.

SWPPP AND EROSION CONTROL · CFOS-08

The reinstall has no pay item to bill against

The plumber cut your silt fence to trench, the inspector wrote the deficiency against your scope, and the repair has nowhere to go except your cost code.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CONCRETE

Eight Tons of Rebar Tagged to a Drawing That Changed

The EOR approved the placing drawings, the fab shop cut and bent to the bar list, and then somebody moved a footing. Now you own bundles tagged to grid lines that no longer exist.

DEMOLITION

Your Breaker Uses Up Tool Steel That Overhead Pays For

A hammer chews $9,000 of tool steel on one teardown and the job that used it never sees a dollar of the cost. The margin looks fine and the bank account disagrees.

DRYWALL

Lead-lined board is eight weeks and non-returnable

The imaging room's board is eight weeks out, cut to the shielding drawings, and the deposit is gone the day you release the order.

QUESTIONS

What SWPPP and erosion control owners ask

Grading slipped past the seeding window who pays for the second seeding?

Grading took too long, the fall window closed, and now you're paying for temporary cover and inspections all winter waiting on spring to seed.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Put both seeding windows on the same calendar as the grading schedule and mark the last date finish grade has to be available for each area.

What are SWPPP and erosion control contractors supposed to be making?

SWPPP and erosion control has 24% gross margin, 14% overhead and 10% net profit after taxes at $1M to $5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is 3 points above it. The CFOS target is 13.5%.

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 following up on them. It comes from chapter 6 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.

OR HAVE IT HANDLED

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 SWPPP and erosion control contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, led by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for SWPPP and erosion control contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

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

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