Quote for excavation work...

[jeromedawg]

Hi all,
We are having some major excavation work done across our driveway and lawn. The initial quote was based on just trenching but then the guy told me he had to add to it because of tree roots that his guys had to dig out. Also they ended up having to dig the trench deeper than what they did to meet the specs of the power company (this is ultimately to provison for an electric panel update). So i think they were expecting to complete the trench work in maybe 2-3 days but it has been extended to 5 days due to the unforeseens

Anyway, after all is said and done he's upcharging nearly $1500 more on top of what we signed basically justifying it via itemizing the additional time spent digging and excavating. He told me the rates to dig and excavate beforehand and from there he put the # of hours in to calculate the total cost.

Does it even make sense to try negotiating? Or is it kind of weird to have that discussion? I was figuring this just to be what the added cost would be and it is what it is but it is a bit unsettling paying that much more. I dont feel like i have much to go off of since his calculations are based on time and a set hourly rate... If i were to question him it seems as though i'd be questioning his integrity and honesty with telling me the actual # of hours his guys put in (i wasnt keeping a close eye on them and their hours and so its hard to quantify this for sure though). He seems like an honest person though so i dont want to create an awkward situation by having that conversation

[Syonyk]

Anyway, after all is said and done he's upcharging nearly $1500 more on top of what we signed basically justifying it via itemizing the additional time spent digging and excavating. He told me the rates to dig and excavate beforehand and from there he put the # of hours in to calculate the total cost.

Yeah, that's about how it works for stuff that involves underground work.  There are unknown unknowns underground, and any ground work almost always involves "estimates are estimates" sort of wording.

Does it even make sense to try negotiating? Or is it kind of weird to have that discussion?

No, it doesn't, and, yeah, it is.

Estimates are estimates for a reason.  You admit they had to dig deeper than what was expected in the quote, they had to deal with unexpected roots, and took several days longer than expected.  He's paying his guys hourly, equipment rental is typically hourly (or maintenance is hourly, fuel is hourly), so... they spent more hours on it.

There's no way you don't come across as "the asshole" if you're going to argue about it.  It comes across as accusing him of lying and padding the invoice.

We had the same issue with our retaining wall - they hit more rock than expected, and "a day of digging" turned into a solid week of digging, breaking their backhoe on our rock, and generally beating the hell out of their equipment.  I think we paid an extra $5k+ for it on a $20k project, but they sure earned it.

Sorry, excavation work is like this.  They hit more than expected, you pay more than quoted.  There's really no way to argue it without coming across as an ass.  If you like the work they did and might have more in the future, it's worth staying on their good side.

[jeromedawg]

Anyway, after all is said and done he's upcharging nearly $1500 more on top of what we signed basically justifying it via itemizing the additional time spent digging and excavating. He told me the rates to dig and excavate beforehand and from there he put the # of hours in to calculate the total cost.

Yeah, that's about how it works for stuff that involves underground work.  There are unknown unknowns underground, and any ground work almost always involves "estimates are estimates" sort of wording.

Does it even make sense to try negotiating? Or is it kind of weird to have that discussion?

No, it doesn't, and, yeah, it is.

Estimates are estimates for a reason.  You admit they had to dig deeper than what was expected in the quote, they had to deal with unexpected roots, and took several days longer than expected.  He's paying his guys hourly, equipment rental is typically hourly (or maintenance is hourly, fuel is hourly), so... they spent more hours on it.

There's no way you don't come across as "the asshole" if you're going to argue about it.  It comes across as accusing him of lying and padding the invoice.

We had the same issue with our retaining wall - they hit more rock than expected, and "a day of digging" turned into a solid week of digging, breaking their backhoe on our rock, and generally beating the hell out of their equipment.  I think we paid an extra $5k+ for it on a $20k project, but they sure earned it.

Sorry, excavation work is like this.  They hit more than expected, you pay more than quoted.  There's really no way to argue it without coming across as an ass.  If you like the work they did and might have more in the future, it's worth staying on their good side.

Thanks for summing it up. I figured this was likely the case but wanted to cross-check here anyway. I havent said a thing to him and glad I didnt. We may use him in the future for other stuff so i figure its best to keep quiet. His guys are pretty good overall. They did bust a small section our drain pipe but should be taking care of that... Well, hopefully at no added cost but we'll see. One other annoyance is the POCO asked for sand to pad the conduit and he had them bring road base :/ the poco trench inspector wasnt ecstatic about this but conceded to it. My electrician thinks the poco trench inspectors are nuts - no way anything will rupture or cut through 3" sch 80 grey electrical conduit

[Syonyk]

Thanks for summing it up. I figured this was likely the case but wanted to cross-check here anyway. I havent said a thing to him and glad I didnt. We may use him in the future for other stuff so i figure its best to keep quiet. His guys are pretty good overall.

I mean, that's what it comes down to.  Either you're happy with the work, even with the added cost, or you're not.  If the first, don't burn bridges.  I tried to explain to the people doing the wall that I was pretty sure that some rock outcroppings went down... they didn't really listen, and I was right, but they solved it.  Just took longer than hoped for.  Underground work is just like that.  A neighbor doing some solar work cut over from PVC to metal to go shallower for a rock outcropping he had no idea was there.

One other annoyance is the POCO asked for sand to pad the conduit and he had them bring road base :/ the poco trench inspector wasnt ecstatic about this but conceded to it. My electrician thinks the poco trench inspectors are nuts - no way anything will rupture or cut through 3" sch 80 grey electrical conduit

o.O  Road mix is not sand.  Not even close.  And I wouldn't bet on Sch80 vs road mix over 30 years, as opposed to sand.  It's probably fine, but... come on, sand is sand, road mix is road mix.

[jeromedawg]

Thanks for summing it up. I figured this was likely the case but wanted to cross-check here anyway. I havent said a thing to him and glad I didnt. We may use him in the future for other stuff so i figure its best to keep quiet. His guys are pretty good overall.

I mean, that's what it comes down to.  Either you're happy with the work, even with the added cost, or you're not.  If the first, don't burn bridges.  I tried to explain to the people doing the wall that I was pretty sure that some rock outcroppings went down... they didn't really listen, and I was right, but they solved it.  Just took longer than hoped for.  Underground work is just like that.  A neighbor doing some solar work cut over from PVC to metal to go shallower for a rock outcropping he had no idea was there.

One other annoyance is the POCO asked for sand to pad the conduit and he had them bring road base :/ the poco trench inspector wasnt ecstatic about this but conceded to it. My electrician thinks the poco trench inspectors are nuts - no way anything will rupture or cut through 3" sch 80 grey electrical conduit

o.O  Road mix is not sand.  Not even close.  And I wouldn't bet on Sch80 vs road mix over 30 years, as opposed to sand.  It's probably fine, but... come on, sand is sand, road mix is road mix.

Im not sure if i should say something about it being roadbase vs sand. It has already been several days so that ship may have sailed. I was kind of like "uhhhhhh" and not sure what to do when the inspector made that observation. The guys dumped the stuff earlier that morning and the inspector came later to look and was like "this isnt sand" --- ughh...

[Syonyk]

If the inspector signed off on it, call it good.

I still don't have a great sense for how anal inspectors are about stuff like that.

[jeromedawg]

If the inspector signed off on it, call it good.

I still don't have a great sense for how anal inspectors are about stuff like that.

It seems to me, at least with my POCO, that they *try* to be somewhat reasonable while still adhering to the book. They'll let things slide but there's not a ton of give. Of course, that's in the context that this POCO wants 200% effort when only 100% is required. So really it's the inspector saying "oh, 150% is fine" -  it's always better to overshoot than undershoot (especially when they don't have to foot the bill), this is more or less what the inspector implied when talking about number of degrees of bends that they permit (which is 270 degrees, while my electrician was shaking his head at that saying NEC limits 360 degrees of bends...). San Diego Gas & Electric (SDGE) is the absolute worst - it's like rubbing salt in the wound with them: "we require 200% effort, and we don't care how much it costs because you're paying for ALL of it"

[jeromedawg]

Well, the trenching work is done and they've backfilled most of it. Such a huge PITA and to top it off my POCO is now giving me a cutover date of OCTOBER 13th!! >:T So ridiculous... we have to leave 10'~ of trench open for them to work in so none of it can be backfilled until SDGE completes the reconnect. We're going to have a huge hole (and liability) in our front yard for the next two months...smh
 

This isn't the last time I'm going to say this be San Diego Gas & Electric is the *absolute worst*

[Sanitary Stache]

road base is some kind of crushed gravel.  There is nothing wrong with it as pipe bedding.  Sand, stone, gravel, they are all equally fine for a pipe that doesn't need to maintain slope, in which case crushed stone should be used. 

When inspecting, I start to get squirmy when rocks look like they are bigger than 2 inch and I am perfectly willing to be the asshole when rocks over 3 inches are back filled any where in the pipe envelope or directly over the pipe.

[jeromedawg]

road base is some kind of crushed gravel.  There is nothing wrong with it as pipe bedding.  Sand, stone, gravel, they are all equally fine for a pipe that doesn't need to maintain slope, in which case crushed stone should be used. 

When inspecting, I start to get squirmy when rocks look like they are bigger than 2 inch and I am perfectly willing to be the asshole when rocks over 3 inches are back filled any where in the pipe envelope or directly over the pipe.

It looked like really fine dirt and crushed rock mixed in. Not sure if it's even road base. The aftermath is that we're left with quite a bit of 'dust' from all of it. The dirt that was dug up was a very hard clay. Chunks of it. Not sure if those were actual rocks or just chunks of really hard clay. If the latter, not sure if that's just as bad as chunks of rock or if it's really nothing to be concerned of.

[Dancin'Dog]

Some types of jobs you get "estimates" and other types you can get "quotes".  Estimates are supposed to give you a good idea of the final cost, but will often vary a bit.  If they'd given you a quote that's all they can expect, even if they underpriced the job.  They'll usually mention that they "lost their butt on this one" and you're at the liberty of giving them a tip or not. 


There are always unknowns when digging, but tree roots sound like a lame surprise to me.  Anything large enough to stop a machine would obviously have a big-ass tree nearby, which would be in plain sight before digging.  I'd probably look around for a better grading contractor for the next project.

[jeromedawg]

Some types of jobs you get "estimates" and other types you can get "quotes".  Estimates are supposed to give you a good idea of the final cost, but will often vary a bit.  If they'd given you a quote that's all they can expect, even if they underpriced the job.  They'll usually mention that they "lost their butt on this one" and you're at the liberty of giving them a tip or not. 


There are always unknowns when digging, but tree roots sound like a lame surprise to me.  Anything large enough to stop a machine would obviously have a big-ass tree nearby, which would be in plain sight before digging.  I'd probably look around for a better grading contractor for the next project.

To be fair, we recently had large trees removed (a big ficus as well as a decent sized carrotwood tree) and I didn't disclose this when the guy came out to give a quote. On the flipside, I would *think* that if you're in the business you probably can tell if there was a tree freshly removed in any given location but that's just my non-professional opinion. Also, there are large palms in our front yard and apparently the roots for those were sprawling as well. So I guess all of these factors made the digging work a lot more difficult that what was 'expected' - the first couple days I did see the guys having to use axes and pick axes to break out larges piece of roots. I think they used a jackhammer as well to break up around the stump. The tree removers from months just chopped the trees down and did some lighter stump grinding (nothing serious because they didn't want to destroy any irrigation or other lines).

What I was initially given, which I signed and sent back, was a "proposal/contract" - not sure if that would be binding in any way as far as pricing is concerned.

[Dancin'Dog]

Did the "proposal/contract" that you signed mention anything about possible cost increases due to unforeseen issues?

[jeromedawg]

Did the "proposal/contract" that you signed mention anything about possible cost increases due to unforeseen issues?

No, there are no terms or conditions on it. It literally looks just like an invoice which states the job #, date, line items/itemized descriptions of each item for the job and the costs, subtotal and then the lines for my name/signature/date

[Dancin'Dog]

That seems like a quote to me.  His mistake shouldn't come out of your pocket. 


If the "proposal/contract" didn't itemize the labor and materials to be used for the job that you hired him to complete how can he say that additional labor and/or material were necessary?  That sounds like a $1500 educational experience, for either him or you.


I'm not saying that it's worth arguing over.  That's your decision. 




The grading work that I've hired charges by the "hour" for grading.  They give a rough estimate, but that's only their experienced guess.  In the mountains, where we are, there are often rocks.  Sometimes their machine reaches its limit & we either decide to call it "good enough" or we call in a bigger machine. 


The same guys haul gravel, which is charged by the "ton".   

[jeromedawg]

That seems like a quote to me.  His mistake shouldn't come out of your pocket. 


If the "proposal/contract" didn't itemize the labor and materials to be used for the job that you hired him to complete how can he say that additional labor and/or material were necessary?  That sounds like a $1500 educational experience, for either him or you.


I'm not saying that it's worth arguing over.  That's your decision. 




The grading work that I've hired charges by the "hour" for grading.  They give a rough estimate, but that's only their experienced guess.  In the mountains, where we are, there are often rocks.  Sometimes their machine reaches its limit & we either decide to call it "good enough" or we call in a bigger machine. 


The same guys haul gravel, which is charged by the "ton".

So what he ended up itemizing on his 'amended' quote was line items prepended with "Extra work" - the original proposal/contract had just the numbered line items:

This is what the amended quote looks like:
1. Saw cut demo and haul away concrete for new electrical conduit. 1,100.00
2. Pot hole and dig trench by hand to find existing utilities before the mini excavator starts.
Includes trenching on backside of block wall. 1,750.00
3. Excavate trench with mini excavator and a spotter. 1,000.00
4. Back fill and compact trench with existing dirt. Haul away remainder of the spoils. 1,700.00
5. Set forms and pour back concrete behind block wall and the section of driveway to existing
walkway. 850.00
Extra work performed: 10 hrs. to dig through tree stump roots and other roots with power tools
and hand tools for several days during the excavation process. 350.00
Extra work performed: 6 hrs. Mini excavator on 7/28/22 digging 2' deeper at main box to 9"
below water line. Includes travel time to bring back mini excavator. 750.00
Extra work performed: 4 hrs. Labor on 7/28/22 digging 2' deeper at main box to 9" below
water line. Spotting mini excavator, pot holing to locate utilities. 140.00
Extra work performed: Deliver 3 yards of sand on 7/29/22 250.00
Extra work performed: 2 hrs. digging and shading trench with sand. 7/29/22 70.00



At this point, I've already [verbally] agreed on all this. Just by saying "ok" after he explained to me the "extra" effort involved. He justified it saying that if there were no major tree roots his guys would have dug the trench out faster, etc so now he has to charge by the hour. I'm not really sure what I can, could, or should have said or done after he said that... I have very little to no experience in these kinds of projects so all of the negotiations and nuances with pricing changes/change orders just goes over my head as I end up entrusting the work to whoever I've chosen as the contractor. Since I already have him doing the work, I'm also inquiring on the cost for doing the back alley way where the concrete is separating away from the home wall (where water can get into the crack and potentially damage the footer over time). This is because there's a 5x5 patch of concrete in that alley where they cut to have the trench go under the masonry wall for the conduit to go where the new electric panel will go - maybe I should just have him patch that up and then call someone else in to do the demo/excavation of the alley? The problem is that we're on a tight timeline and have an HVAC system in the wings to be installed slated for the end of the month. Since this grading/excavation contractor is already familiar with the situation, it would probably be easier/faster to go with him. Perhaps not at the lowest cost. Of all the quotes I've gotten this guy hasn't been the most expensive but he's not the cheapest either. He's probably in the middle of the quotes I've gotten possibly a bit over the middle...

[Askel]

If you want to hire this guy again: pay it with a smile on your face and maybe a "hey next time call me before going over budget ok?".

If you never care to see this guy again, doesn't sound like you signed anything obligating you to pay so you can just say no. But don't expect him or any of his cohorts to work for you again. 

Personally, since this guy's renting an excavator and is surprised by things like roots, this seems like kind of a mickey mouse operation. I'd just rent the mini ex myself and skip the middle man so I can have all the fun.