Day Care Center Bidding

[srlawnservice]

Getting ready to bid a privately owned day care center. My calculations I'm coming up with are between 70-75 per service for mow, trim, edge, and blow. 1 acre irregular plot, six to eight trees and about 200 feet of fence to trim and of course the structure. I'm figuring one hour per service for me and partner. No ride time cause it's in the same neighborhood that we do residential work.

I had read somewhere previously in this forum that some folks go a little low on these guys small biz owners to get the bid. I came up with my number based on how we bid residential. (yup, sq ft pricing)
My gut reaction is he's a low baller, but if I don't get the account I won't be heartbroken. I'm more worried about making sure I'm charging enough.

Any advice? Also, any special insurance needed? Or any special procedures if we do fert/weed control?
Tks
RL

[Phil Nilsson]

reply

Advice on the fert & weed control part of this ... do the fert but try to sub out weed & insect controls why? ... reduce the risk of a potential lawsuit in connection with pesticide poisoning ... kids out in the yard. As to the charges, commercial many times will "come in" at about 80% of the same footages compared to residential because of the larger props, you save a little on travel ... those are "rough" assumptions but a start. For every $100 for houses $80 for commercial ... larger areas, faster mowing, less travel ... generally but not always.

Phil Nilsson
Nilsson Associates Consultants
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Edited by - phil nilsson on Jul 17 2002 8:14:33 PM

[Greenman]

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They (the daycare or whoever is accepting the offer) will probably expect liability insurance of some kind, in the rare case some property damage is done from an accident or something. I would go with $1 million/2 million but no less than $100,000/200,000. To apply weed control(pesticide), a license will be needed. Probably don't need a license to fert. What kind of equipment are you running to do 1 acre an hour? Your price sounds about right if you can do it in that time.

[dancom]

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I cut two day cares. they are right about spraying, the day cares don't like it. some of them only want you to cut after hours or on week ends make sure you find this info out. I don't like to cut on weekends if i can keep from it.

Dan Comer
Comer's Lawn

[srlawnservice]

reply

tks to all for the advice. Greenman, there are two of us with two 21" walk behinds. I'm basing the 1 hr estimate on the largest prop we currently have which is 15K sq ft and we can mow, trim, blow and go in 25 minutes. I'm also looking at TOTAL property size, not what has to be mowed. I figure as long as I don't go over 65 minutes I'll be o.k.

Tks again for all the input. The pesticide info in particular.

RL