Contract structure
Why an Honest Concrete Quote Is Not a Single Number
Boards want certainty and concrete restoration cannot give it. Here is the structure that protects the association instead.
We will turn it into a buildable scope, a phasing plan and a realistic range — so the board can decide with numbers rather than adjectives.
The problem with a fixed price here
Nobody knows how much deteriorated concrete there is until it is opened and sounded. A contractor giving a fixed price is doing one of two things: padding heavily to cover the unknown, or pricing thin and planning to recover the difference through change orders.
The first costs the association money it did not need to spend. The second produces a dispute in front of an angry membership. Neither is what a board wants when it chose the fixed price for certainty.
What a unit-rate contract looks like
A rate per unit of each repair type, an estimated quantity from the engineer's sounding, and measured actuals verified by the engineer as the work proceeds.
- Rates fixed at award, so pricing certainty exists where it can.
- Estimated quantities from the engineer, so the board has a working total.
- Every repair measured and documented as it is opened.
- The engineer verifies quantities — not the contractor alone.
- Monthly reporting so the board sees the trend rather than the final number.
What the board should hold
Contingency, sized to the uncertainty the engineer identifies, and the discipline to report the running quantity to the membership as it develops rather than at the end.
The single worst outcome in this work is a membership that learns the number moved only when it has already doubled. That is a communication failure rather than a construction one, and it is entirely avoidable.
FAQ
Common questions
- Is a unit-rate contract open-ended?
- The rates are fixed; the quantity is measured. The engineer verifies it. That is more controlled than a padded fixed price.
- How much contingency should we hold?
- Sized to the uncertainty your engineer identifies. Ask them directly.
- Can quantities really double?
- Occasionally, yes. Which is precisely why a fixed price on unsounded concrete is not a real number.
- Who measures?
- We measure and document; the engineer verifies. Not us alone.
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.