How Long to Bust Up Some Concrete?

[PowerStroke79_PE]

Losing money and trying to screw the Gov't are two different things. My written review of their proposal to Contracting ended up being a full page of comments. I'll just give you some of the highlights:

• They were already supposed to be doing work on that manhole to adjust it to grade, but they charged us for traffic control in their change order. Are we supposed to pay for traffic control twice? They did the same thing for their labor and project superintendent...charged us in their change order even though they were going to be working on that manhole anyway.
  
• They want to charge us $40/ton for 304 aggregate, but there's a supplier very close to here and their cost is $17/ton. When we pointed this out to the contractor he said it was $40 because that was the delivered price. So if it's delivered then why does he have pricing in there for two dump trucks?
  
• We know how big the vault is and I am pretty sure I still know how to do basic math. I came up with a conservative quantity of 29 tons of 304 to fill it. The contractor has 70 tons on his proposal.
  
• The contractor wants $870 per day for a mini-excavator w/ hydraulic hammer. There's an equipment rental place less than 2 miles from here, I drive by it every morning, and the same equipment costs $394 per day.
  

lol, sounds to me like you don't need him at all to get this done. 

 

[jeb6294]

The contractor snuck out one weekend and did the work on the manhole when there was nobody here. We did talk to one of the guys on the job though, and he said it took them less than a day to do the whole thing.

 

[PowerStroke79_PE]

Yeah, it seemed that way by the description you posted. That's great for both sides. I hate change orders. I always try to just get it done and hopefully not have to send in any paperwork for added costs. There are exceptions of course.

 

[jeb6294]

Yeah, it seemed that way by the description you posted. That's great for both sides. I hate change orders. I always try to just get it done and hopefully not have to send in any paperwork for added costs. There are exceptions of course.

You sound as crooked as the contractor. How is that great for both sides? They submitted a ridiculous change order for 3 days of unwarranted labor and overpriced equipment rental and screwed the Gov't, i.e. taxpayers. They did the same thing when they had to replace 2 manhole covers on a steam vault. Their proposal was over $5,000, half of which was supposed to be for renting an excavator and operator for two days. I stood out there and watched them swap out both manhole covers in an afternoon with a grinder and a drill. But I suppose you think that was a great deal too...

 

[PowerStroke79_PE]

Lmao! , excuse me a bit while I keep laughing.....Im gonna let you keep trying to sound like a hero by bringing up "taxpayers"... 

 

[youngmotivatedengineer]

Jeb, did you ever evaluate the idea of just completely removing the vault?  What was his original plan to adjust the lid to grade? If the lid couldn't be modified due to poor concrete underneath, it should have been fairly simple to get an excavator and pull the lid off, or bang on /jackhammer the lid near the access lid and have the debris just fall in the vault. If installed in the 60's in a non-traffic area, there probably wasn't that much reinforcement in it,  

It sounds like he sneaked in to do to work on a weekend so nobody saw how simple the job was or what shortcuts he may have taken.