Lesson 2.1

The market grades every number

Read everything before counting: plans AND specs AND addenda — scope hides in all three, and the missed addendum is bid-day disaster #1.
Exclusions and clarifications define the boundary honestly: unstated assumptions become free work. Alternates and unit prices let owners compare options and pre-price change categories.
Bid-day discipline: checklists, sub-quote cutoffs, final math review. And the paradox to internalize: a bid you can't build for the price is worse than no bid — winning it is losing.
The feedback loop: post-bid reviews (win or lose) calibrate the market read; job-cost actuals vs. estimate build the labor-unit library (409's history discipline, compounding into accuracy).
Contingency stays explicit and reasoned per risk — a named line, never a hidden universal fudge; and hold the estimator's definition of product: a number the company can build profitably AND defend line by line.
Change orders price with the same takeoff+labor rigor at retail — documented and defensible, standing on 206's field records.

LAB — bid a real package

From a supplied bid set (plans, spec excerpts, one addendum): perform the full takeoff (worksheet provided) for a 2-AHU + 14-zone job.
Build the estimate: labor units + two condition factors, materials from the quote sheet, programming/checkout hours, explicit contingency with reasons.
Write the proposal page: inclusions, exclusions, two clarifications, one alternate.
The trap: the addendum changed a controller family — miss it and the estimate fails review.

Pass: counts within tolerance; addendum caught; invisible scope priced; proposal boundary honest.

LAB DEMO VIDEO

Instructor walkthrough — takeoff rhythm + the addendum catch

[ ~12 min ]

Anatomy of the estimate — stack: takeoff counts → labor units × condition factors → materials (quote validity) → subs → invisible scope (eng/prog/checkout) → OH&P → price; exclusions fence around the scope; feedback arrow from job actuals back to labor library