Labor Rates for Innerduct?

[daronwilson]

Anyone have any published labor rates for burying 4" solid wall innerduct? I'm still waiting to hear what the reel size and put up is on it, but the engineers on the project want a price (less the excavation) for us to roll it out and throw it in the ditch. 3,500 with multiple vaults, I just can't seem to find a labor rate for that kind of work.

thanks

It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[mikeydidit]

Hey Daron. The only thing that I can come up with for you is I get charged $1.00 per foot to install innerduct in our existing ladder rack. Hope this gives you something to go by.

Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[daronwilson]

Thanks, I just did labor rates for 4" PVC conduit, that is something like 6.5 hours per 100' for installation, I'm trying to determine if that is anywhere near justifyable for 4" pipe on a roll that you have to make lay flat in the ditch. I've not installed 4" before, but I suspect it is a bit of work to get it off the reel and laying in a straight line in the ditch. I've got 3,500 feet to get stuffed in there with vaults and all, they aren't afraid to pay it, but if I can find somewhere that says these are standard recognized labor rates for 4" burial duct, that would make it easier on me and the engineers.

thanks

It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[mikeydidit]

Is this the schedule 120 that you have to fuse the joints together on?? I can find that price for you.

Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[Jtodd]

I'm kinda curious, what is the 4" innerduct for? I've never even seen it before, let alone used it.

Justin T. Clausen
Physical Layer Implementation
California State University, Monterey Bay

 

[AvayaNovice]

Interesting. We charge by the foot for any type of burial applications, but usually that involves the trenching aspect as well.

Considering that this is an innerduct product... are you going to be hot splicing them together, or where you end up is where you lay the vault?

If so... I would charge a flat rate per foot. For PVC conduit, we charge in the neighborhood of $5 per foot. But again, that's with excavation. It's fairly arbitrary for me to make any assumptions after that...

Do you have a standard construction hourly rate? We have two divisions, construction and installation (construction includes maintanence). Our construction hourly rate is different than hour install hourly rate...

I might base it off that.

I'm also curious, why are you using innerduct for such an application? Is this more like polypipe, that you'd use for HDD?

 

[daronwilson]

Oh it's a great job, about 10,000 feet of water pipe line, a water treatment plant, raw water intake system, 36,000 feet of fiber, etc. The downside it is engineered by CH2MHill, which means the cost for the total project will be double what it is for any other engineered project, and so does the paperwork. Anyway, they spec'd 5 runs of 2" innerduct, we submitted on duraline smooth wall HDPE, which is fine. Now they are asking for a quote to make a change for the Telco 2" that was spec'd to serve the treatment plant. It was to be a piece of 2", 3,500 feet from the right of way into the plant. They want a price to put 4" in instead and want to know the cost. Regular vaults along the way, I'll order the product put up in lengths that land at the vaults.

Now, when you submit this kind of thing to the 'engineers' for review, you need to tell them your material costs and your labor costs. Obviously you are estimating your labor, and they will want to know where you came up with that figure. Normally when we do PVC or any other kind of conduit, our estimating software has NECA (National Electrical Contractors Association) labor rates for every part and component you use. They are nationally recognized, so that you tell the engineer "we figured this with NECA labor rates and we need 210 hours of labor to install this 3,500 feet". They accept whatever the standard rates are, you do your best to be quick, and you make money.

Without a standard rate from someone, we just guess and try to justify our guess. It makes it much easier if someone with some authority says the standard labor rate for 4" poly ducting (personally I really don't think it is innerduct unless it is inside something) is 6.5 hours per 100' installed.

At this point we'll estimate high and see how they take it. Should be fun getting this off a 10' spool and getting it to straighten out in the winter.

thanks

It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[SkipCox]

OK, try to bid by the foot according to the above. A job this size will also require a t&m clause in case you run into granite on a dirt bid.

This is a situation where neither party can look underground and promise the digging will be simple.

I've had to shoot rock to put truck service islands in an existing gas station and not only is it a cost overrun, it's hard on the nerves too.

Just trying to say, after adding everything up under normal conditions, include a clause that gets you paid for unforseen circumstances. I'd recommend the bid is also somewhere around the mean. Not too low and not too high.

Like you said, trying to get 4" to move and make progress is not impossible but, you're gonna be buying some beer for work well done. Sounds like you have a good crew.

I'd welcome your experience as a start for my bid to keep me from getting in trouble dealing with water and I'd also welcome you bid for a similar project. You, are in a crappy position if a hard price is the requirement here. In that case, I would bid it high but I'd rather see you go for a very nice performance bonus if you pull it off and just bid the job for it's worth. It's a crappy decision.

Skip

http://home.comcast.net/~skip9/index.html

http://scc.i8.com

 

[AvayaNovice]

Certainly.

HDPE isn't that hard to place, to be honest. Especially since you're going to be dealing with exact lengths, not having to fusion splice it is nice. That's what adds time, and frustration. And if you've got an easy path that you don't have to dig, that takes potholing out of the issue, etc. etc.

So I'm having a hard time coming up with a rate. Like I said... for 2-4" PVC, we charge 5.80 a foot -- but that's based off of a contract we have set up (this is mostly for CATV/Telephone company bids). For directional drilling, that really varies... but we start off at about 10 a foot.

We never lay pipe when we don't dig... except for rare cases -- in which we just charge T&M.

 

[daronwilson]

Thanks for the input. There is an excavation contractor doing this 2-3 year job, so we just don't have to worry about excavation, that is his bid. Everything on a project like this is a fixed quote, but everything has that unforseen clause in it as well. I'm not worried about that.

Most important is being able to convince the engineer that our labor rate is 'reasonable' for what we are doing. We'll have a crew laying two 5" pvc pipes in the other side of the ditch for primary power, so it's not like we have to totally gear up and do just this HDPE. The 120" spools will sit on a trailer and just have to be dragged along with as the poly is placed. I've got the vault installation already covered.

Anyway, thanks for the ideas.


It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[mikeydidit]

Daron this may be one of those T&M type deals. It seems that may be the best way to do your closest estimates. Just a thought.

Mike Jones
LSUHSC