In article om,
Lew Hodgett wrote:

Once had a buyer who indicated he would put a job out to bid and the
low 5 bidders got to rebid.

This was a 6 digit job that was low balled going in.

There was nothing left for another bid; however, buyer was told that
he was truly serious, he would have gotten the "real" price.

Good thing buyer didn't follow up, but it was fun watching buyer's
expression as the blood rushed to the face.


I'll give a contractor the opportunity to re-bid, _when_ it is obvious
they have 'missed something' on the submission. Doesn't happen very
often, but I do want 'apples-to-apples' comparison of what they believe
is needed. Usually, when I got something 'out-of-line' low, it was
that bidder wasn't including something that the others -were-. Discussion
would usually establish that they didn't believe that -that- item needed
work/replacement, whereupon I'd ask for a quote as an 'add-on' in case I
wanted it done 'anyway'.

Had a really funny situation in this respect a number of years ago --
Needed to replace 'a furnace' in the house, it had failed during an
extremely cold spell in the winter. Now, as it happened, the house
had two complete heating/cooling systems, one each for two separate
'zones' (an artifact of a _major_ add-on, some years previous).

Did have to make it clear to the companies that this was _NOT_ an
'emergency' situation, that we were soliciting competing bids, _and_
that they could/should schedule this job _after_ any 'emergency' calls.
(We figured out, 'after the fact', that the furnace in question had
probably died a good two weeks before we placed the initial service call.
Took a while to 'penetrate consciousness' that the 'other furnace' was
running almost constantly.)

Got quotes from several reputable firms, sat down to review them, and
'make a decision' -- ended up calling *all* the bidders back and asking
"why are quoting a unit over 2-1/2 times the size of the one that is
being replaced?"" None of the estimators had noticed the 'other furnace'
on the other side of the basement, _or_ checked the 'plate' on the dead
unit. "Assumed" it did the whole house, and sized by eyeball, accordingly.
(The estimators were =good=, the units they quoted were very close to the
combined capacity of both the existing units.)

Second round of bids came in with _much_ lower numbers. grin

Turned out they _couldn't_ quote the 'same size 'unit as the one being
replaced -- *nobody* made one that _small_ any more -- but could get
something rated only about 20% larger.