Guides / Estimating
Reading a bid packet
A bid packet is not written to tell you what to paint. It is written to describe a building, and your scope is scattered across it in four or five places that do not reference each other. Reading it in the right order is most of the skill.
Read it in this order
- The addenda, newest first — they override everything below and are the most commonly missed documents in the packet
- The invitation to bid and bid form — what you must submit, by when, and in what format, including whether alternates are required
- Division 09 of the specification (finishes) — which products qualify, how many coats, what preparation is specified, what warranty is required
- The finish schedule — what finish goes in which room, which is where your quantities come from
- The drawings — room sizes, ceiling heights, elevations, and anything the finish schedule implies but does not dimension
- General conditions — access hours, protection, cleanup, who provides what, and the payment terms
The specification decides your material cost, not you
Division 09 often names specific products or an "or approved equal" standard. If it names a premium product and you priced a mid-range one, your material cost is wrong and a substitution request may be refused.
It also specifies the preparation and the number of coats, which decides your labor. A specification calling for a level of surface preparation beyond your normal repaint standard is a different production rate, and that is where commercial bids are most often underpriced.
The finish schedule is where the quantities live
Walls, ceilings, doors, frames, and often each is a different finish. Work room by room from the schedule rather than estimating the building, because the schedule is the document that will be used to judge whether you painted what you said you would.
Watch for rooms listed as "existing to remain" or by another trade — painting them is unpaid work and not painting something you should have is a backcharge.
The four things most often missed
- An addendum that changed the scope after the original issue
- Doors and frames, which are frequently a separate line and a large number of units
- Touch-up and final cleaning after other trades finish, which is a return trip
- Who is providing access equipment — if it is you, that is a real cost that appears nowhere in the finish schedule
Write down your assumptions and submit them
Where the documents are genuinely ambiguous, state your interpretation as a qualification on the bid. It costs nothing, it is normal practice, and it converts a future argument into a disclosed assumption that the other side accepted when they took your price.
An unqualified bid on an ambiguous document means the ambiguity resolves against you.
Questions
What should I read first in a bid packet?
The addenda, newest first. They override the rest of the documents and are the single most commonly missed part of a packet.
Where do the quantities come from?
The finish schedule, worked room by room — not from estimating the building. The schedule is also the document used to judge whether you painted what you agreed to.
What if the documents are ambiguous?
State your interpretation as a written qualification on the bid. An unqualified bid on an ambiguous document means the ambiguity resolves against you.
Where this stops being arithmetic
Aerys prices a job from your own catalog and production rates, sends it with an accept link and the invoice already attached, and then compares what the job actually cost against what you quoted — by task, while the job is still running.