Rost Architects - Contractor Bidding Process
With each project it is critical to have a qualified, competent and experienced builder to construct the home. The quality of the builder will drastically effect the construction experience and outcome of the home. Over the years, we have developed a group of builders that we like to build our homes. Likewise, we have worked with builders who we would not recommend to our clients.
The process of interviewing, bidding and hiring a contractor can be complex and long. We prefer to be heavily involved in this process as representatives to the owners. Ultimately, it will be the owners choice on which contractor that they would like to work with based on budget and personal preference, however we can provide significant value and help guide our clients to making an educated, well informed decision.
What does an architect do during the bidding phase?
Provide Introductions to Builders
As mentioned above, we have worked with many contractors in our local market. We can provide our clients with feedback on our experience working with each group. We will make introductions to those contractors and introduce them to the project. In this stage, a good practice is to organize visits where the owner can see project under construction or finished work by the builder to see the quality, site management and meet internal staff.
Assemble and Distribute Instructions to Bidders Package
Your architectural team can assemble a package that includes the plans, project renders, flythrough to each bidding contractor. Along with the project documents, we typically send out a contractor qualification package, a bidding template, and provide a schedule for bidding. The bid template is a key tool to make analyzing or “leveling the bids” much easier.
The purpose of a bid template is to have each bidding contractor format their bids in the same way. This makes it easier to compare and “level bids.” If a bid template is not used, each of the bidding contractors will use their own format and it make it incredibly difficult to make an “apples to apples” comparison. With a bid template, each contractor will be required to place their numbers for each category of work on the same line in the bid.
Respond to any questions the bidding contractors may have
During the bidding process, each bidder will have questions about the project. We typically will conduct a series of meetings with each bidder to answer their questions and add/clarify information in the plan set. During the meetings we will ask the bidders questions as well to make sure that they have studied the drawings and are aware of the expected quality. It is relatively easy to decipher how well the contractor has studied the drawings and his level of competency in executing the details that we have drawn in the construction set.
Issue Addenda to the drawings
If a contractor points requests additional information or asks for additional details to help refine his/her pricing, most likely another bidding contractor will have these same questions. In the bidding process we will assemble all of the additional drawings. details and responses that each bidding contractor asked and integrate them into the construction set as an addenda. This updated set will be re-issued to each bidding contractor for them to modify pricing.
Review and Level Bids
On receipt of all bids, our team will begin our leveling process. As mentioned above, this process is much easier if all bids are formatted in our bid template. During this process we will make sure that each contractor has all the scope in the drawings accounted for.
