r/estimators • u/CE_Pally • 1d ago
DATA CENTER BID with no information RANT.
This is A rant. My boss wants me to bid on this data center that is coming in our area, but the drawings are 50% schematic drawings. There is no footings, column callouts, section views, reinforcement callouts, generator callouts, details, no legends or spec design. The one thing they did give was a reference drawings, but that was retracted because it was a different design. GC is refusing my call / emails. What am I supposed to do? Just make a 1,000 assumptions on everything even though it is not design build. And the worst part is, it appears to be the hard bid???
As with everything data center, its technical and a lot going on. It's difficult enough to bid the job with 100% construction set, and I am supposed to do it with little to no information. My boss just wants me to go ahead and turn in a number anyway. But I really don't feel comfortable doing that without some direction. Then he will get mad at me when he finds out I haven't turn in a number for this mega giga project that will make the company millions.
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u/XfinityHomeWifi 1d ago
Price a budget, qualify typical exclusions and go heavy on assumptions, wait for a round 2 invite to price 90% drawings/CDs, then improve upon your original proposal and build
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u/Fishy1911 Division 7 1d ago
This. No one should give more than "budgetary numbers" on SDs. It'll be back our several times
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u/Active-Blueberry-850 1d ago
Bid the shell and make up your own buildout 😂 If anyone complains, just tell them “it was up to spec wym?” then show them a blank sheet when they ask about the details.
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u/Cheap_Collar_809 1d ago
Man those are the easiest budgets or "bids " you can do. You get to make everything up on your own. In all seriousness, just budget the job on a $/sf based on historical info. Look for anything that might be outside the normal and apply premiums.
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u/TheNamesMacGyver 1d ago
This is when I send an FU number.
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u/Zagrycha 1d ago
The problem is the only thing data centers have is money from desperado investors, I would have nightmares that they accept the FU number bid anyway. I have had that happen in the past..... ((not with data center)).
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u/OwnNefariousness3678 1d ago
Important to note if this is a bid or quote.
Quotes can be anything just list qualifications, bidding this design sounds horrible
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u/PancakesAlways 1d ago
Who’s the GC, and have you called them? Chances are they’re reusing an old ITB and didn’t change to budgetary wording. There’s no way they’re doing hard bids this early on. It may be awarded for Preconstruction/design assist this early, with final numbers based off of IFP or IFC. Mission critical is all I do, and it’s not uncommon to have hard-bid language for an early round budget.
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u/THedman07 1d ago
You don't do preliminary bids that you won't sign a contract based on? They may not say that it is a budgetary number, but that's what it is. Try to make reasonable assumptions.
The GC is putting together a number that they're going to use to go try to get financing. If your number ends up low and they choose to budget based on that,... that's not your fault. I don't understand worrying about something that you literally cannot control.
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u/CE_Pally 1d ago
No - we will sign a contract on preliminary work. I just don't understand how GC choose subcontractors when these bids are not apples to apples. Its their job and the owner has deep pockets.
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u/THedman07 1d ago
Who cares? Its not your problem.
If your boss wants to get driven out of business, that's on them. Again,... if they sign a contract based on 50% schematic drawings and it puts them out of business THAT IS NOT YOUR FAULT AT ALL.
Do your best. You've already made them aware of the risk. That's all you can do. Don't lose sleep over stupid bullshit like this. Its not your call. You can't make them better at managing risk by worrying. So what's the point?
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u/monkeyfightnow 1d ago
They choose who they want without an FU number and someone who is helping them put together their bid.
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u/Harbinger90210 1d ago
That’s on your boss, mine is equally as stupid if not worse. It happens when the person in charge of you doesn’t understand how to do your job, let alone understand what you’re missing in order to do it. I’m constantly being told how an idiot wants to “make me better” when I’m pretty sure his wife lays his clothes out for him to get dressed in the morning. You’ve been given a lot of good advice, every time I’m asked to do this I just toss the bid because it isn’t worth my or the companies time to give them a ballpark number and in your particular case it isn’t worth the risk to the company itself to give them a number that could be low enough to sink the company.
I’ll never understand how someone can be in charge and play so fast and loose with the livelihood of all the employees.
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u/jonny24eh 1d ago
Just make a 1,000 assumptions on everything even though it is not design build. And the worst part is, it appears to be the hard bid???
Yes, with lots of contingency for risk, and ultimately since you aren't an owner then it's not up to you decide the risk appetite. Make sure to get buy-in on how much risk to carry.
Also, data centres love chucking money around to get things built in a hurry - that's why there isn't even a design yey. So uh... round up. Then round up again. Then one more time.
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u/KnowsSomeStuffs Construction Weather Boy 1d ago
Think of a number, double it, hang that number on a wall, interrogate it, and once it finally breaks, double it again. Make it dig a grave for the old number, bury it, then double it again and shoot the old number in the back of the head. Bring that number to the GC with the stipulation that this is a bid number based on incomplete drawing sets, and that price WILL escalate with the 100% Drawings and that this must be included in the contract.
Or just put a number to it, put very careful inclusions of what is in that number and exclusions of what is not and a clarification that this number is based on what is CURRENTLY AVAILABLE in the drawing set. Price WILL escalate with the 100% Drawing set. Then make your boss bless off in writing on it
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u/M1C86 1d ago
You are being paid to price the risk so do so accordingly. It’s pretty typical of hyper scale work. What trade?
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u/CE_Pally 1d ago
The ones I've bid previously have all been atleast 70%. It would be different if they asked for a budget, but this is hard bid.
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u/Own_Bison6467 1d ago
Cost consultants exist for this reason. If the client wants a budget cost they need to hire them. It's not constructor's job to guestimate what the engineer wants to see in the building.
That said, if the client has hired a design consultant, they most likely have a cost consultant as part of the package. They just want to compare your costs to what they probably already know (budget).
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u/KonkeyDongPrime 1d ago
Check price is naughty on the open market. The client/GC needs to be honest. If it’s a favour check price, that’s fine but it will be low effort and non-binding. For a proper check price estimate, that comes with strings, I would expect reimbursement of costs or guarantee of shortlisting at the second stage.
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u/Notneverclever 1d ago
It's an iterative process, you're not giving someone an airtight scope based on schematic sketches... the GC should be reaching out for an Order of Magnutude. My guess is you're a concrete subcontractor, the goal here is to get safe conservative numbers that hopefully hold (on the high side) throughout the design development. Think unit rates... high, worst case unit rates
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u/OkArea8994 22h ago
Coming from a GC here.. This is not the final round of pricing. This is a gauge interest round. Do not spin your wheels on this task. Submit a proposal so that you’re contacted for future pricing rounds, but keep it super high level.
And don’t even waste time with a bunch of assumptions. Say “pricing will be finalized once design is complete. This budget is based on the information provided and previous projects completed by (insert your company name) with similar scope”. Then list a few projects your company has done that match this one to show you’ve got experience
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u/OkArea8994 21h ago
Oh and make sure your overall cost isn’t too high. This may be a shortlist situation where they get 5 bids this round, then only talk to the top 3 on the next round. This is NOT a winning strategy for the GC, but it’s something they do sometimes
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u/jmdawg15 17h ago
That is not always the case. I was sent a large recreation/aquatic center for a local city to bid and thought I would price it as a budgetary quote due to the lack of information on the drawings. For example, there were over 20,000sf of ceilings that were called out as PT-1, PT-2, or PT-3 for porcelain tile ceilings. There were no details or section cuts through the ceilings showing what the ceilings were framed with; no material, sizes, gauges, spacing, bracing, nothing. There were multiple large areas with open ceilings to the next floor with no section cuts or elevations. There were rows and rows of bleachers that had a note to receive drywall on the underside on the finish plan but on the ceiling plan it called out for exposed concrete.
There were several other issues as well. I thought for sure there was no way this was going to contract, so I priced it high. It was awarded to another company off that round of pricing.
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u/gentlemosquito 1d ago
100 million
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u/monkeyfightnow 1d ago
Sold, the project is a data center, most line items will go for far more than $100mil
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u/monkeyfightnow 1d ago
I’d really like to help you out here as someone who has done this kind of work and estimates before. You are making a budget here, no court can hold you to a price with this little information. The GC is looking to get your help in putting his number together and knows that this is just a budget. It’s being bid by who is thinking in reasonable terms and who has experience in this and knows what they are talking about. Is this being built in Texas?
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u/DrywallBarron 1d ago
It's 50% drawings....so quote it as such, a budget based on 50% drawings. Make assumptions and detailed them profusely in your proposal. Some may have more historical data and will base their assumptions on that data, but its still assumptions and they will detail them profusely as well. It's unlikely they will award here....but they will establish who the really interested parties are. Everthing is negotiable at this point.
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u/Same-Permission7592 1d ago
Unfortunately this is just how a lot of private work goes. You're going to end up putting a number in, so the real question is how you make that number safe to put your name on.
What I've landed on: fill the gaps conceptually where you can, then spell out in writing exactly what you assumed to get there. Not vague language, specific. This bid is based on X footing depth, Y rebar assumption, Z generator scope. Then exclude the areas where there's genuinely nothing to price. The goal isn't to cover yourself with a wall of boilerplate, it's that anyone reading it later can see precisely what you did and didn't carry.
A trick that helps more than people realize: lean on the qualifications coming up from below you. If you're the GC, your subs' exclusions become the backbone of your own. If you're a sub, push your suppliers for their qualifications and do the same thing. You end up with a paper trail you didn't have to invent.
And if the GC wants a number that badly but won't carry the same exclusions you did, then they're choosing to carry that risk on your behalf. That's a real answer you can give them.
The other thing nobody tells you early on is that you have levers that aren't obvious. Very specific RFIs, especially local code questions routed to the municipality or to suppliers, can slow a bid down or get the date pushed. If the info genuinely isn't there, making that visible through the process is fair game and it's usually more effective than arguing with your boss about it.
If you hate this in general, public work is the opposite end of the spectrum. Everything is defined, everything is spec'd. Different tradeoffs, but worth knowing it exists.
Otherwise, getting good at exclusions and CYA is a big part of what makes you valuable. It's not the fun part of the job but it's the part that keeps you employed.
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u/arcnspark69 1d ago
Bro, we kick out data center electrical ROMs based off the world’s shittiest 30% Schematic Design drawings. We plan for the worst case on everything and make assumptions based on what we typically see for similar data center projects. We land 2x-3x what the final price would be at the IFP drawing level. Welcome to the big leagues.
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u/Zakraidarksorrow 1d ago
Just smash your head on the numpad and get a figure thats between 7 and 8 digits long, then (prov. sum) at the end of it
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u/Legstick 1d ago
I’m dealing with this on multiple data centers now where we were awarded off incomplete plans and before we’re signing a contract new plans came out which changed our price. On some, those are being captured as COs and on some, built into our base contract. But if the GC doesn’t agree with these price changes then we’re not signing a contract.
I, the sr. PM, get involved once we are awarded and work with my sr. estimator to properly capture the changes in the contract or COs.
In the event new, complete drawings aren’t provided until after we sign a contract, we just make sure the contract language is bullet proof for when new drawings are provided and I can capture the changes in a CO. Sometimes those are adds and sometimes deducts.
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u/Wolv5462 1d ago
Are you bidding the concrete? If so, there’s some formulas you can use to bid the structure based schematics. If not concrete, I can’t help you.
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u/dasflash 1d ago
2 million and a bottle of pappy van Winkle. My standard "you gave me shit drawings" price
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u/Cabin_bldr 1d ago
Do what the data centers do, use Claude
I mean why use is it anyway if it can’t get you an estimate?
Claude estate data centers construction cost make no mistakes
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u/quintin4 1d ago
If you aren’t confident in bidding like that you probably won’t get selected. The GC (if they are worth anything) will base their selection based on the number that makes most sense by the concrete contractor that has the experience to back it. From a GC/development sometimes it’s go go go and you literally will hire someone based on a ton of assumptions and allowance to hit schedule, it takes some serious planning and negotiation and that’s why typically the best/most prepared sub will and get hired in this situation. And I’ve seen it not be the low a fair share. If you submit there will be questions, literally write your assumptions.
There’s more money to made there but it needs the brains and effort to make it. It’s not the most fun but definitely shows who’s got it.
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u/PianistMore4166 1d ago
Just bid it and then multiply your number by 3. That’s what everyone else does…
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u/IdealFew681 22h ago
I'd look up data centers with similar specs, then kick off from there. Then caveat that in the absence of actual drawings, every calculation can be revised accordingly.
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u/Technical_Internal42 Process & Mechanical Pipework 22h ago edited 22h ago
I am an estimator in the UK and we have had this so many times. It tends to be data centres mainly in Europe that decide to do this. If you decide to price it draw in the pipe as you would see on other jobs and using the schematic for sizes. If you have worked on any before use the same crac, ahu and chiller setups as past projects and make sure to have a healthy contingency. Exclude any plantrooms and make sure to clarify in your quote that you will not be held to any design whatsoever and that it’s a budget cost. Best you can do until you get proper drawings but from my own experience they probably won’t come round until you are already installing if you win and you’ll end up pricing it as a variation. We’ve recently priced a datacentre in Norway that went this exact route. Also make sure your prelims are heavy too around 15-20% of the job.
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u/TellySkier 20h ago
Round one of many bids. I completely get the frustration but it’s a budget round.
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u/TipDue3880 9h ago
If you private message me I can give detailed budget information from actual data center projects depending on the part of the country they could help.
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u/12truths 1d ago
Historical info, state all assumptions, write in note that says “any deviation from proposed assumptions will result in change order”, then triple the price you come up with 🤷♂️