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Online Lawn Care Estimator - Help me bid this job
If you need help coming up with a bid for a lawn care, landscaping, tree cutting or irrigation job, post the specifics here and pictures of the job site. If you are looking to learn about bidding, review the jobs posted here.

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Online Lawn Care Estimator - Help me bid this job

If you need help coming up with a bid for a lawn care, landscaping, tree cutting or irrigation job, post the specifics here and pictures of the job site. If you are looking to learn about bidding, review the jobs posted here.
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  #1  
Old 08-22-2012, 08:14 PM
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Default apartment complex

Tomorrow I'm turning in a bid for this property for the 2013 season. The bid is for 4 different services and each is a separate bid. The landscaping has a breakdown in it. For the guys that never seen a commercial bid like this take a look. Every company does it differently but some things are always the same.

Youll see when you start bidding jobs like this your bidding formula goes out the window. I mean you can try to bid edging at a $1 a ft but are you really going to charge someone $16k for the year for it? The same goes with gutters. I normally would charge about $3 a ft for a 3 story building but how do justify a $9k gutter cleaning? You have to break it all down in man hours.
I did all the hard work in measuring. I just want to get some feedback before I submit this. The 2 things that are a pita is the edging and clearing the sidewalks of snow.

I'm hoping to land the mowing and pressure washing. The gutter cleaning would be good too. I really dont want to deal with clearing snow from all those walks. If I do it will be with 4x4 quad that I dont have or if they let me leave the kubota on site. Theres no way I'm trailering a 3 ton tractor in snow.


Spring Clean Up $____
Mowing and Trimming Every 5-7 days $____ 3.6 acres surrounding a dozen buildings.
Edging walks, beds, and trees per time $___ 4 x's a year 4800 liner ft.
Fall Clean Up $
Trimming & Pruning $
Flowers Spring / Fall by office and sign $____
Hand Weeding $_____ 2 x's a year
Mulching $_____ 6" Depth ( 2200 sq ft)

The next bid is for gutter cleaning. Theres 3180 liner feet of gutters. The buildings are ' tall. $_____

Then we have pressure washing. Theres 12 buildings, all are 3 stories, 11340 sq ft each, 136080 total. $_____

The final piece is snow removal. The parking lot isnt that big at only 2.8 acres but there divided into 12 smaller lots. The real killer is the sidewalks theres 4800' of walks at 5' wide. $____

https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-...ed=0CBkQ8gEwAA
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  #2  
Old 08-22-2012, 08:51 PM
xandrew245x xandrew245x is offline
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Lawn care business tips
Quote:
Originally Posted by SECTLANDSCAPING View Post
Tomorrow I'm turning in a bid for this property for the 2013 season. The bid is for 4 different services and each is a separate bid. The landscaping has a breakdown in it. For the guys that never seen a commercial bid like this take a look. Every company does it differently but some things are always the same.

Youll see when you start bidding jobs like this your bidding formula goes out the window. I mean you can try to bid edging at a $1 a ft but are you really going to charge someone $16k for the year for it? The same goes with gutters. I normally would charge about $3 a ft for a 3 story building but how do justify a $9k gutter cleaning? You have to break it all down in man hours.
I did all the hard work in measuring. I just want to get some feedback before I submit this. The 2 things that are a pita is the edging and clearing the sidewalks of snow.

I'm hoping to land the mowing and pressure washing. The gutter cleaning would be good too. I really dont want to deal with clearing snow from all those walks. If I do it will be with 4x4 quad that I dont have or if they let me leave the kubota on site. Theres no way I'm trailering a 3 ton tractor in snow.


Spring Clean Up $____
Mowing and Trimming Every 5-7 days $____ 3.6 acres surrounding a dozen buildings.
Edging walks, beds, and trees per time $___ 4 x's a year 4800 liner ft.
Fall Clean Up $
Trimming & Pruning $
Flowers Spring / Fall by office and sign $____
Hand Weeding $_____ 2 x's a year
Mulching $_____ 6" Depth ( 2200 sq ft)

The next bid is for gutter cleaning. Theres 3180 liner feet of gutters. The buildings are ' tall. $_____

Then we have pressure washing. Theres 12 buildings, all are 3 stories, 11340 sq ft each, 136080 total. $_____

The final piece is snow removal. The parking lot isnt that big at only 2.8 acres but there divided into 12 smaller lots. The real killer is the sidewalks theres 4800' of walks at 5' wide. $____

https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-...ed=0CBkQ8gEwAA
How do you go about the whole commercial bid process?

I thought about maybe submitting a few commercial bids for smaller places, but I don't even know who to contact to find the information out.
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  #3  
Old 08-22-2012, 09:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xandrew245x View Post
How do you go about the whole commercial bid process?

I thought about maybe submitting a few commercial bids for smaller places, but I don't even know who to contact to find the information out.
Theyll find you. I dont know who these people are till they call. This the 4th commercial property I bid this week. The office of the property management company that called me today about 2 hotels is about 50 miles away. I would never think people that far away would be managing buildings in my area.

Get your name out there is step one. Step two would be have the equipment for when they do call. Step three would be pay me for more info.

You could try asking at the business your interested in but that might come off as desperate. I dont think these type of people like unsolicited bids. They usually target the 4 or 5 biggest companies.
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Old 08-23-2012, 05:56 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SECTLANDSCAPING View Post
Theyll find you. I dont know who these people are till they call. This the 4th commercial property I bid this week. The office of the property management company that called me today about 2 hotels is about 50 miles away. I would never think people that far away would be managing buildings in my area.

Get your name out there is step one. Step two would be have the equipment for when they do call. Step three would be pay me for more info.

You could try asking at the business your interested in but that might come off as desperate. I dont think these type of people like unsolicited bids. They usually target the 4 or 5 biggest companies.
I thought you could contact them and then be put on their bid list. Then when the time came around you just submit a bid, and they pick who they want.
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  #5  
Old 08-23-2012, 01:14 PM
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How many man hours are you estimating each service to take you?
  • Spring Clean Up
    How many many hours for this?
  • Mowing and Trimming Every 5-7 days, 3.6 acres surrounding a dozen buildings.
    How many many hours for this?
  • Edging walks, beds, and trees per time. 4 x's a year 4800 liner ft.
    How many many hours for this?
  • Fall Clean Up
    How many many hours for this?
  • Trimming & Pruning
    How many many hours for this?
  • Flowers Spring / Fall by office and sign
    How many many hours for this?
  • Hand Weeding. 2 x's a year
    How many many hours for this?
  • Mulching 6" Depth ( 2200 sq ft)
    How many many hours for this?
  • The next bid is for gutter cleaning. Theres 3180 liner feet of gutters. The buildings are ' tall.
    How many man hours and how high up are these gutters?
  • Then we have pressure washing. Theres 12 buildings, all are 3 stories, 11340 sq ft each, 136080 total.
    How many many hours for this?
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  #6  
Old 10-08-2012, 06:01 PM
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I got a call today saying my snow removal bid was extremely low. I bid it at $26,500. I was 1 for 8 on snow bids so I dropped $4k off the bid. Now that I'm reran the numbers I'm at $33,600. I still think that might be a bit low.

There was only 3 snow events last winter but we should get 8-10 this year.
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Old 10-09-2012, 09:46 AM
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Did you hear anything about how the lawn care bid went? Is that tied in with the snow removal bid?
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Old 10-09-2012, 10:08 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve View Post
Did you hear anything about how the lawn care bid went? Is that tied in with the snow removal bid?
I shouldve asked but didnt. The 4 bids were all separate, so there not really tied together.
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Old 10-09-2012, 10:14 AM
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Quote:
Spring Clean Up $____
Mowing and Trimming Every 5-7 days $____ 3.6 acres surrounding a dozen buildings.
Edging walks, beds, and trees per time $___ 4 x's a year 4800 liner ft.
Fall Clean Up $
Trimming & Pruning $
Flowers Spring / Fall by office and sign $____
Hand Weeding $_____ 2 x's a year
Mulching $_____ 6" Depth ( 2200 sq ft)

The next bid is for gutter cleaning. Theres 3180 liner feet of gutters. The buildings are ' tall. $_____

Then we have pressure washing. Theres 12 buildings, all are 3 stories, 11340 sq ft each, 136080 total. $_____
What did you finally go with for them?

I hope you get it!
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  #10  
Old 10-09-2012, 10:29 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve View Post
What did you finally go with for them?

I hope you get it!
Around $60,000 total. I really would like all the contracts for this one but the snow plowing is going to require a 10,000 investment. I dont want to rely on subs again they screwed me in the past.
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