The current economic climate is driving customers to make decisions based solely on short-term savings. On the construction site, ‘bargain hunting’ can prove to be a costly mindset. What a consumer may have to pay after the contract is closed can cost far more than any up-front savings from using the lowest bidders.
On two recent projects, we’ve been called in to repair or complete jobs that were mishandled by the very contractors who took the original project with their ‘low bid.’
On one, we were asked to find a solution because when the cleaning crew mopped the restaurant’s kitchen floor, it ‘rained’ into the space below. The improper installation of trowel-able waterproofing caused the application to fail, and the customer to spend a lot of money paying us to repair an installation that ‘looked OK’ on the surface but failed to stand up to on-going use.
In another case, we were asked to come in at the last minute and install tile on a university project that turned out to be beyond the capabilities of the ‘low bid’ tile subcontractor. The dollar value of the change order issued for us to complete the job was the same amount our original bid differed from the price of the ‘lowest bidder’ originally chosen.
In this era of price shopping, remember that you still usually get what you pay for.
Neuse Tile Service 
May 6, 2011 at 2:18 pm
This couldn’t be more true!