Out of Town/Out of State Contractors

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cdslotz said:
I had an EC friend of mine in the 90's that did Wal Marts all over Texas and other states.
He knew the exact cost, down to every nut/bolt/screw, for every floorplan that WalMart built.
I was estimating at another EC, so I've done those takeoffs on Wal Marts, and they are very complicated with controls, refrigeration wiring, prefered vendors, etc.
I bid a couple and got whipped by my friend, but he would make a very good profit on his jobs.
If I remember, there were GC's that specialized in Wal Marts too, and the GC's still had to get competitive bids from locals.
My friend would win every time....I'm pretty sure that if the competition was low or high, my friend probably got last look. The GC's already had my friend's number plugged in anyway.
These jobs, as with all retail, are fast track. The GC's didn't have that to worry about with an EC like my friend....
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We wired the 1st Walmart in Vermont

It was political/protested

The only reason we were hired was because they needed local licensure.....the prints said 'retail store'

Even the builders of it had no clue

Point? These folks know how to work a crowd , if one wants a textbook capitalist machine look no further

~RJ~
 
oldsparky52 said:
At one time in my life I ran the construction department for a pump and tank operation. We found that we made more money on out of town jobs than we did on in town jobs. What we finally understood is that when men are out of town, they want to finish and get home. They get to the job earlier, leave later, work harder.

While in town, they need to get off on time to get home, arrive at the job later, and expand the time to complete the job to the perceived time to complete it.

I don't know if this answers the OP's question, but I found it interesting when we discovered it.
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I see the logic there but you still have motel & meal costs. Are they drinking rocket fuel on the jobs?
 
oldsparky52 said:
Yes, motel and meals add up, but the job supported it.
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One major project here saw over a years worth of out of state labor put up in local motels.

The reason that is cheaper than local labor (and we are cheap in VT) is because these are H1B visa holders



~RJ~
 
romex jockey said:
One major project here saw over a years worth of out of state labor put up in local motels.

The reason that is cheaper than local labor (and we are cheap in VT) is because these are H1B visa holders



~RJ~
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Well one of the differences for us is that people that know how we did pump and tank work were not readily available. It's not like the building trades, lots of people around that know how to do it. We had to be certified on everything we touched. Takes some time and money.
 
Which is why i'm big on certs, permits, inspections old spark

case in point all the solar fields here are mostly constructed by national companies, nothing required.

no bona fide local spark can compete....:(

and the local IAEI chapter wonders why we loose licenses faster than we create them

~RJ~
 
We cover five states...... in our situation, we’re not necessarily the cheapest, we’re the most experienced.

Also, we know exactly what it costs to do the job, and in some instances I’ve been asked to do it for less and I don’t have to guess at costs.

I’ve been the low bidder on several projects I didn’t get because another EC had more experience in that particular segment, and if it’s close enough, they’ll take experience over price.


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Actually we have slowed down a bit as most of my builders are retiring. It actually feels good to be running smoothly without being called to 10 jobs at the same time. I had one builder who had 3 jobs ready at the same time... I hate when that happens.
 
It's the back 9 of my career, i'm finally on my own. I could care less if i get a job or not anymore.....so i play the prima donna curmudgeon card a lot.....even my ahj sezs i'm a pita....:p~RJ~:cool:
 
A company that I thought about going to work for 20+ years ago got all of a certain grocery stores new projects in a number of states, they had them nailed. They knew how many lifts, storage trailers, men for each portion of the project, etc..... The morning they hit the job they were running and never slowed down until they finished, local competing bidders could not touch them and if they did they lost money.

Roger
 
A number of years ago I was asked to bid a K-Mart here locally. I politely declined because the job was too big for us at that time. I did leave my contact info with the GC and the out of town EC who did the job and picked up a few scraps on it as the job progressed because I was here and available when the SHTF from time to time. When the job was nearly done every trade was way behind because of weather and other factors so the K-Mart rep called us in to do most of the change orders in order to get the store open. The EC was furious about not getting that sweet and profitable work and we almost had to call in the cops to keep things from escalating too far. Anyway we made darned good money by picking up the scraps and doing a lot of service work until the store finally got settled in. Since then we have made it a practice to introduce ourselves on larger projects early on and we frequently get some nice service and troubleshooting work as a result.
 
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