Outsourcing water and sewer estimating:
when it pays.

Why civil contractors send tenders out

• More tenders than estimating time. Three tenders close in the same fortnight and only one can be priced properly.
• The estimator has left or is on leave. Tenders keep arriving while the seat is empty. Paying per job costs less than a salary while you recruit.
• A second check on a big or risky price. Deep sewer, pump stations and live road water mains are where one wrong assumption costs more than the margin.
• Specialist scope inside a bigger package. A subdivision or road job with a sewer pump station or a long water main in it. Someone who prices that work every week will find what a generalist misses.

What a proper outsourced estimate includes

• Priced from the drawings, long sections and specification, against the water authority's codes and supplements.
• Built from first principles. Crew, plant, production for the ground and depth, materials and subcontract, line by line. Not a rate per metre from a cost guide.
• Your own rates where you want them. Your supplier prices, your plant rates and your markup approach, so the estimate reads like one of yours.
• An assumptions register and an exclusions register, so you know exactly what the number covers before you submit it.
• Programme implications: where the estimate depends on a duration, a shutdown window or a staging assumption.
• Delivered as PDF and Excel, with the rate build-up behind every line.
• Checked before it leaves the office.

If what comes back is only a list of quantities, the hard part (production, ground risk and the authority's requirements) is still on your desk.

How the fee should work

Ask for a fixed fee, quoted before any work starts, with the delivery date agreed in writing at the same time. The fee depends on how much there is to price: the length and depth of the work, the number of structures and pump stations, and what the tender asks for.

With us, you email the plans and we send back a free fixed quote for the estimate work. Once you accept it, we agree a realistic delivery window before anything starts, and we tell you straight away if your closing date is tight.

Judge the fee against the cost of one missed item. A single unpriced shutdown at night, a run of trench support, or spoil that turns out to be contaminated can each be worth many times the estimating fee.

What to ask before you send a tender to anyone

1. Do you specialise in water, sewer and pump stations? A generalist will miss the authority-specific items.
2. Who prices the job, and can I talk to them? You should be able to ask the person who built a rate why it is what it is.
3. How is production worked out? You want metres per day set for the ground, depth and location, not one figure for everything.
4. Can you use my supplier and plant rates?
5. Will I get the assumptions and exclusions in writing?
6. What happens if the client questions a line after submission?
7. Are my drawings and rates kept confidential?

You keep control of the price

An outsourced estimate gives you the cost, built up line by line. The price you submit is still yours: read the assumptions first, check the largest lines, adjust production if your crews work faster or slower in that ground, then add your margin and your risk allowance.

When outsourcing does not pay

• Small jobs you can price properly in an hour.
• Repeat work where you have your own recent history to price from.
• Design and construct work where the design has to come first.

For everything else, the question is simple: is a fixed fee cheaper than the tender you would otherwise decline, rush or get wrong?