New construction - Offer for civil engineering works ok?

Hello,

today we received the offer from the construction company for the civil engineering work for our upcoming house construction:
1. Creating a construction site access on your property in the area of the later access road, excluding the carport, approx. 40m². The construction road will not be removed.
2. Removing topsoil, approx. 40m³, to be stored on the side for later use by the landscaper, the remaining soil will be hauled away.
3. Adding and compacting gravel as a replacement for soil excavation in layers.
4. Delivering and installing sub-base drainage Ø 100 according to the planning with all fittings and connections including earthworks.
5. Digging, delivering, and laying rainwater drainage Ø 100 in single or double pipe.
6. Wastewater pipes Ø 100 as above.
7. Creating single and double pipe trenches and properly backfilling after laying the pipes.
8. Making connections of the rainwater and wastewater pipes to the existing inspection shafts.

Price: 10,152.00 EUR

Is the price acceptable?

Thank you.

Well, what do you mean by concerns. I just have no experience / point of comparison and had hoped that someone here could evaluate whether this adds up.

I have budgeted 10,000 EUR for the civil engineering, so I am not shocked by the price, but I had already included a reserve in my calculation for the ever-popular additional foundation costs. In my opinion, the offer confirms that we have a relatively normal plot of land, and then the price just seems a bit high to me. Just looking at average prices for topsoil removal and gravel backfill, especially since the quantities seem completely normal to me, or even rather low. The pipeline routes are not particularly long and the inspection shafts are already in place.

Additionally, we are building in Schleswig-Holstein, and as far as I know, construction prices here are rather cheaper.

Another offer is out of the question for me since I want to do this all through the construction company, i.e., from a single source. However, if there are indications that the offer is too expensive, I would like to confront them with it in the hope that something can still be done. However, I simply lack the knowledge to judge whether this is okay or if my gut feeling is that it is a bit too high.

Hello,

Another offer is out of the question for me because I want to do it all from one source, meaning through the construction company. However, if there are indications that the offer is too expensive, I would like to confront them with that in the hope that something can still be done.

To be able to exert this "gentle" pressure, you actually need another offer. Because your civil engineer will probably only negotiate if – insofar as a second offer actually turns out cheaper – he gets the impression that he risks losing the contract; otherwise, he insists on his offer.

Who you ultimately award the contract to remains entirely up to you.

Rhenish regards

Maybe I expressed myself a bit unclearly. By construction company, I meant our general contractor. He presented us with his offer. I don’t know the offer from the actually executing civil engineering contractor at all.

If I now want to find my own civil engineering contractor for another offer, I don’t even know what documents I should provide them with, and that will certainly take some time. I’m also afraid that I might do something wrong because I really have no idea about this and could mess up the entire schedule.

My concern is less about the actual civil engineering contractor and more that the general contractor has added a bit on top, since he knows my calculation of €10,000 for the civil engineering work from our overall cost calculation. But as I said, that also included the reserve for additional foundation costs, which did not materialize.

What is your opinion, can the specified works cost that much?

In the ancillary cost list here in the forum, about 3000 EUR are also stated for the internal development, then there is the excavation, storage, removal, and filling with gravel. With 40cbm quite manageable, right? Let’s estimate well with 2000 EUR. Then the construction road with 40 sqm. What might that cost? Max 1000? I’m at 6000 EUR. It just seems strange to me to have 10,000 then. Or am I overlooking something?

I just don’t want to complain unjustly, that’s why I’m asking if that can be correct, because I’m so far off with the above calculation. We don’t even have a basement...

So, I cannot determine the thickness of the topsoil to be removed, nor the size of the area to be excavated. Since the gravel layer to be applied also depends on this, we cannot draw any conclusions.

In our civil engineer's offer, for example, it states: Remove 160 m2 of topsoil of the building area up to 45 cm thick (30 cm is taken over by the construction company) and store it on the side, deliver 50 m3 of F1 sand and install it with a thickness of 50 cm.

Why are there no data in your offer???