Sending out projects for tender (competitive prices) is always a hectic operation in the office. Collating drawings, schedules, specification and forms simultaneously with Building Regulations information. Currently we have one job on site, which was tendered and another, which was negotiated.
The safest route to providing value for money is by tendering but the unsuccessful tenderers lose time and money in the process. Most contractors don’t need to tender for work as they have more than enough through personal recommendation and repeat business, sounds familiar.
Tendering may be costly to the client at the front end, but it pays dividends if every item is priced or can be adjusted according to a schedule of day work/ hourly rates, hence avoiding extras. The projects I work on always include a healthy contingency of 10% of the contract sum which is NOT expended unless the Client agrees that it is unforeseen or a genuine extra, change to the specification, i.e. brass taps in lieu of chrome for example.
Most historic building projects have a fair number of variations but not all these attract additional cost.