Understanding equipment costs for a project requires a comprehensive approach, taking into consideration both the material and labor aspects. This article discusses how to estimate these costs, factoring in the need for specific equipment, potential usage timeframes, and the costs associated with equipment mobilization.
Key Insights
- The necessity and duration of equipment usage on a project is dependent on the tasks being self-performed. Equipment may be provided by the general contractor, but its availability to subcontractors should be taken into account when estimating costs.
- Additional labor may be required for operating certain equipment, and these costs should also be factored in. Furthermore, the intermittent usage of equipment could impact overall project costs, as equipment rental and operator labor may need to be calculated differently.
- Equipment mobilization costs, such as delivery and pick-up, should be considered in the overall estimate. Additionally, the productivity of equipment at each task, including potential extra time required for aspects like trench backfill, needs to be accounted for to correctly define labor and rental periods.
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Let's talk about estimating equipment costs. So what equipment do you need and for how long? If you're self-performing any labor, you need to consider if any equipment is needed or required for installing materials or providing a task. Equipment is sometimes provided by the general contractor and could be available to the subcontractors as needed.
Equipment such as backhoes and forklifts require operators, which is a labor category. So as you add labor to the project or equipment to the project, recognize that either one of those may require each other in order for it to function. It's not uncommon that some equipment may be used sporadically for the duration of the project.
In this case, the equipment should be priced out separately for its rental period and the estimated operator labor may be calculated for only 50 percent of the time. Keep in mind that each time you have a piece of equipment delivered out to a job site, it usually costs money to mobilize it. They come in, they drop it off, and they come back in, they pick it up.
It might be more cost effective to have the piece of equipment on site for an extended duration of time until you're done with it. If you only need a piece of equipment at the very beginning and perhaps at the very end of a 12-month long project, it may be worthy of actually just renting it one month at a time with two mobilizations. It's important to know the productivity when using specific equipment.
A backfill and an operator may be able to dig 50 feet of a 6-foot deep trench per hour. After the trench is done and the work takes place, it's important to recognize that the trench backfill needs to be taken into account as well. Therefore, the equipment needs to be available when all the backfill takes place.
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The productivity of the initial work period is easy to define, but the backfill has added an additional time frame to the equipment requirements. It's important to double check all equipment requirements and understand how productive the equipment will be at each task. This way, you can appropriately define the labor and rental periods.
