# Site Services



## SeyCon (Jul 31, 2014)

We are an excavation company that recently added in doing site services. We have done a few larger projects (for us) such as one with about 500' of 3' concrete pipe at 10-12' depth. We're on the path but still very green behind the ears. 

I'm looking for some wisdom from the veterans on here who have the experience that goes with years in the field and real projects. 

Currently here is how I am doing our estimating for utilities:

Find the volume of the trench excavation in a PDF markup software (Revu Bluebeam).

Use this volume of loose cubic meters and compare to my production rate (cycles/hr times LYD3/bucket) and I base that on 50mins/hr being productive.

That gives me the excavation time. I then assume that if I have that excavator trenching/moving the shoring and another installing backfill and compacting they should be able to more or less keep up to eachother. Throw in a foreman/pipelayer and two laborers/helpers who should be able to keep up with the two excavators.

This means essential I used the cost of my five man crew times the excavation time and then add in 10% for delays, weather etc.

Is that a roughly accurate way to arrive a the cost of putting in our utilities? I usually just base it on the time from previous jobs but in this I don't have enough info so I thought I'd try and tap into the larger pool of wisdom and hopefully learn from others' mistakes so I can avoid making those ones myself.

Thank you in advance for sharing your insights.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

LOL..... I do it the exact same way too. I also figure 50 min production per/hr. Do you figure in rental for trench boxes, gravel boxes and pipe lasers ? What about dewatering ?


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## SeyCon (Jul 31, 2014)

Yeah I work out all of my misc costs separately then plug them into our excel spreadsheet. Misc costs to me are:

-traffic control (if req'd)
-road plates
-shoring/trench boxes
-pipe laser (if we need a second)
-maybe some cash for a couple more 3" trash pumps if it looks really wet
-surveying costs if there are lots of layouts...although hopefully we will soon get a robot total station...maybe for Christmas LOL

Our sites are all on the west coast of Canada and the environmental requirements are nuts...so our dewatering costs can be livid. We dewater from the excavations into a sediment pond (that's cheap) but we have to pump out of the sediment pond usually into a filtration unit (ie flocculent). Those filtration units can run up to around $70-80 k for a six week rental once you add in the delivery, setup, tear down, and hualing fees! Usually the GC will cover that rental though.

Do you usually count on a five man crew with 2 excavators as well? Usually I will consider:

1 x 235 exc
1 x 235 or 290 exc (if heavy digging or deep)
1 x small exc (like a bobcat E55) with the hoe pack
1 x pipelayer
2 x laborers

Then I will figure on the same amount of time for a skilled labourer to do all of the grouting...assuming there are a number of MH's and CB's.

I'm thinking if its concrete pipe I'll increase the time by a bit (maybe 10%) or something. We have only done that one project with concrete and it definitely took longer. Quite different from 1-2' PVC.

I appreciate the feedback as I had just been assuming that was a good approach.


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## peteo (Jan 8, 2011)

I would add a loader with forks and a bucket to carry stone, pipe, structures, etc. Unless you can get to everything with a hoe but that takes a lot of time tracking back and forth


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## BattleRidge (Feb 9, 2008)

I definitely over estimate more then that, I found when I was really forensic about my estimates I made less money because of slow production days or over excavations, rain storms, downtime, over use in fuel. For example when placing a 36 RCP culvert I don't even take the culvert out for my backfill calculations. I also add 3% contingency on everything.


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