wording of proposal

[grumpydasmurf]

I'm bidding a roof on an addition. The new roof is an extension of the old roof. I know the carpenters are going to rip up some of the old roof to tie in their framing.

How do I cover my butt if the carpenters go tear off crazy and tear off more than a few feet?

I was thinking the line in the proposal that discusses placement of shingles should say: "Install blah shingles over the areas of new construction, as indicated on the specifications, and maximum of 3' onto the existing house."

Good?

[Rich]

I would get even more specific as to include X squares of shingles - which is 3X bundles of shingles. Or something similar to that. Then you can take pictures of on-site material and say there are 3x bundles and I had to buy an additional Y bundles to complete the job.
I say 3x because I thought it was 3 bundles per square but it's been so long since I've done a shingle roof.

So proposal would have -

Install blah singles over the areas of new construction, as shown on plans and specifications, and maximum of 3' onto the existing roof. Maximum area will include x squares of shingles..etc..etc.

[grumpydasmurf]

Were you saying to inform of my total squares or just of the squares used for overlap? I don'nt include the measurements of my projects in my proposals for a few reasons.

Reason 1) The general contractor will call 100 roofers and ask "How much for x squares on x pitch?" until he finds someone cheaper.

Reason 2) Customers revieweing estimates might see mine as 50 squares and xyz's at 45 squares and make a decision based on that. "Oh he must have mis measured." when infact xyz mis measured...

It is 3 bundles of shingles per square for most shingles. Premium architectural shingles that weigh alot are sometimes 4 bundles per square.

[Rich]

I guess I look at it a little differently. I don't think I've ever taken the cheapest bid from a subcontractor.. ever. I look at what their capabilities are in a few different areas. Manpower and experience of manpower, schedule conflicts versus manpower when I need them to be on-site, safety record, and previous experience with similar projects.
I'm very specific in requirements of bidding also though. Where I would measure for you anyway and have you bid x number of squares just like the next subcontractor. Is what I hate to see is when one sub has x amount and another says y amount - this does me no good at all for a basis of comparison.
We just selected our framing contractor on this 23000sf house on abilities alone. They didn't bid anything other than pre-construction, which overall was a negligible number. We based it all on business structure, experience of manpower (even got names of leads), previous projects, and references.

[Rich]

Additionally, if I do hard bid, I will bring all the contractors in to interview anyway. Just so I can get more information such as, if their bid was way under, I can see what they missed. If they were way over - I can find out what they saw that maybe someone else didn't see. If their material was way off I can find out what they missed or what everyone else missed. We do bid tabs for all scopes of work - so we can compare apples to apples. If someone misses something we add in the highest number from the other subs or what our budget number was.
That's the only way I see that I can get the true value of the work.