7 Ways to Avoid the "PITA Tax" When Getting Projects Priced
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To paraphrase a line from Henry Fielding's "Tom Jones," when getting construction bids, it is not enough that your building *is* inexpensive to build, it must *look* inexpensive to build.
This means you need drawings that don't look complicated, and that are well put together.
This is tough, because of course pricing sets are often not the finished set, they're progress sets, so naturally they are unfinished. The trick is to make them as complete as possible, while also keeping things as tight, lean, and clear as you can, so you avoid the "this project looks complicated and this team looks disorganized so I'm going to charge extra" tax from the GC and subs.
[When I was a GC, we used to call it the “PITA Tax” - pain in the a** tax!]
Some ways for your drawings to make a better impression:
Trim the pages in your set. Revit has the tendency to encourage "set bloat" bc it's so easy to create so many views. Big sets full of extra drawings indicate an undisciplined architectural team, and send the GC a message that the project is not "tight."
Consider adding some explanatory 3D (simple!) diagrams, say, to indicate the location and type of facade materials, or to explain a structural issue that looks crazy in 2D but is very easy to understand in 3D
Consider adding a written narrative, with quick few bullet points in each division, explaining the intent and the basic spec. Calibrate the level of specificity and formality of this to the phase you're in
Owners: give your architect enough time and fee to create a good set. Might not even have to be much - an extra couple weeks (and associated fee) can be the difference between a well-coordinated set and a piece of crap that will confuse contractors. It'll be worth it, I promise.
Architects: get serious about what *actually* needs to be drawn to communicate the project. Do you really need 7 building sections, or will 3 do the trick? Go thru your standard details, wall sections, etc and eliminate the ones that aren't needed. Pare down for clarity!
Engineers: make sure you're using the right backgrounds, don't include 7 pages of boilerplate that has nothing to do with this project, and figure out how to put as much info (clearly) into as few drawings as possible. Give the architect realistic timelines for when you need backgrounds and/or the updated Revit model.
Everyone: neatness and completion counts. If a GC or sub flips thru the set and sees a bunch of offset text, extraneous lines, half cooked/sloppy details, conflicting info...they're going to up their price. Do whatever you can to be as neat and complete as you can, even if that means leaving stuff off the progress set (one of my favorite tricks is to issue detail sheets with a ton of blank squares but with clear titles, so they know what we're *planning* to include, but we aren't wasting anyone's time with half baked details cluttering things up and causing confusion).
What are your favorite tips and ideas for making sure pricing sets avoid the "ugh you're complicated and disheveled" tax?
Here are some thoughts from Twitter: