# Government/Federal bidding.



## tonyyoder96 (Nov 28, 2017)

Curious if anyone here has experience in the process of bidding government contracts (demolition, excavation, pipework, etc), and if they're worth perusing. I've found tons of websites that offer access to these types of bids for a monthly fee, but I'm curious if there's a better/more direct way to go about it. 

Thanks!!


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## Half-fast Eddie (Aug 21, 2020)

No experience, but can you just get a subscription to the Federal Register?


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## Kingcarpenter1 (May 5, 2020)

Have bid & completed roofing air bases, federal court house jobs, prison jobs & others. No room for delays & there is no excuse for being late or not meeting deadlines for anybody. As soon as this happens for whatever reason bar none, your losing big money. They pretty much choose who is awarded & it takes a long time to get respect or notification on any government gig. I woul not even think about opening my wallet for dead end leads. Takes big cake & capitol just to break the ice. Not to mention all the other hoops & costs

Mike


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## rrk (Apr 22, 2012)

I used to work for a company that was all they did, very detailed bids, don't miss anything and must meet deadlines and do every bit of paperwork required. Also have a lot of money in the bank, we sometimes did not get paid for 180 days. Other times they were the only company to offer to wait 180 days or longer until the next years budget came up.
Really not for the inexperienced. They used Dodge Reports and a few others


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## Fishindude (Aug 15, 2017)

Have built many government projects. If you can stay busy and make enough money in private sector work, my advice is to steer clear of government work.


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

I did a lot of local, county, state projects.... some with fed funding. Always got paid in timely fashion if you have your paperwork in order and turned in on time. 

Read the contracts, doesn't fit, don't bid

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## Snobnd (Jul 1, 2008)

Whatever you do do not bring a powder actuated nail gun into a federal building ,I learned that the hard way!


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## Mhaskins (Jan 7, 2018)

I mostly do municipal work. We mostly do Water, sewer, storm, etc. Bonding can be your largest hurdle. You need cash in the bank and have a history. Know how to deal with engineers, and the cities and towns. Know your spec book and plans forwards and backwards. Most I've waited for cash was probably 90 days. But if your doing a Davis - Bacon project that has a high pay scale that can hurt when your putting out 100k per month for payroll and then add materials on top of that. It is just a different animal. Not necessarily better or worse other than you know if your the low bidder on the job when the bids are read aloud publicly.


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## Squiresjd (Aug 22, 2021)

Mhaskins said:


> I mostly do municipal work. We mostly do Water, sewer, storm, etc. Bonding can be your largest hurdle. You need cash in the bank and have a history. Know how to deal with engineers, and the cities and towns. Know your spec book and plans forwards and backwards. Most I've waited for cash was probably 90 days. But if your doing a Davis - Bacon project that has a high pay scale that can hurt when your putting out 100k per month for payroll and then add materials on top of that. It is just a different animal. Not necessarily better or worse other than you know if your the low bidder on the job when the bids are read aloud publicly.


Is it always the low bidder that gets the job? Or do they take other factors into account from what you’ve seen?


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

Most bid proposals say contract to be awarded to lowest responsible bidder.

If your bid bond, bid proposal is filled out properly, unless you have a history of uncompleted, shoddy work, or having liens applied to your projects...the project owner would be hard pressed not to accept low bid.

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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

I should add...if you do crappy work, don't pay your bills, or complete on time, good luck getting a bond anyway. 

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## Kingcarpenter1 (May 5, 2020)

Once you miss a deadline, word gets outlike wild fire. If your low bid it won’t help you.



Mike


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## Pompanosix (Sep 22, 2015)

dayexco said:


> I did a lot of local, county, state projects.... some with fed funding. Always got paid in timely fashion if you have your paperwork in order and turned in on time.
> 
> Read the contracts, doesn't fit, don't bid
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


You're lucky. Wasn't quite my experience.

Did an airport job for the county, Davis-Bacon.
At one point we were 4 months without receiving a check.
Our pay apps were turned in on time, approved, and everything. And that was for contracted work.
Change orders were even slower.

Mhaskins is right, it helps to have deep pockets.
For example. I'm just a lowly demo guy, but the electricians were upwards of almost $50 an hour. And they had a big crew, doing 3 shifts/day!
I can only imagine how much their pay app was monthly, let alone 4 or 5 months.


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## Pounder (Nov 28, 2020)

All my experience was in the university system in California, and most of that was using a system called Job Order Contracting. Basically, you bid on a million dollars worth of work without knowing what it is. All of the pricing comes out of a price book with unit pricing for pretty much anything you could think of. 
The listed prices were all over the map, some sucked, some were a gift from God. We made a fortune putting sprinklers in a football field, lost a fortune doing concrete repair/replacement.
I figured out how to game the system and pissed everyone off. After that, at bid meetings for future contracts, I wasn't allowed to speak.


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## cdkyle (Jul 12, 2009)

Squiresjd said:


> Is it always the low bidder that gets the job? Or do they take other factors into account from what you’ve seen?


Almost always the low bidder.


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

About 15 years ago, I bid a storm sewer project for local community. 

My bid was 440k, very good, reputable contractor forty miles away took me out by less than $300.

I made the plea to city council that I was local, employees were from town, I paid taxes here, etc, etc.

Low bidder stood up, says I'm apparent low bidder, and unless there are errors in my bid bond, bid proposal..I fully expect to be awarded the contract tonight or I'll be having my attorney get in contact with yours.

The city, rightfully so..awarded him the job.

That's just the way it works here. 

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