UNDERGROUND UTILITY: PIPE ESCALATION ON LONG JOBS
PVC, HDPE, ductile iron, and copper track resin and metal markets, and multi-season municipal jobs price pipe a year before it ships. TWO existing pages sit on this: underground-utility-contractor-material-escalation-pipe and underground-utility-pipe-material-escalation-long-jobs.
This page covers one problem. The full picture for this trade, including the other places margin leaks, is on the underground utility operating system page.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES.
PVC, HDPE, ductile iron, and copper track resin and metal markets, and multi-season municipal jobs price pipe a year before it ships. TWO existing pages sit on this: underground-utility-contractor-material-escalation-pipe and underground-utility-pipe-material-escalation-long-jobs. Verify at port whether they split angles cleanly (bid-clause mechanics vs long-job cash exposure); if not, merge + 301 the weaker.
THE NUMBER TO MEASURE IT AGAINST.
Underground Utility contractors run about % net profit at $1M to $5M, rising to roughly 6% at $5M to $10M. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is10%, set at 10 percent before taxes or 3.5 points better than your trade's average at your revenue, whichever is higher. A problem like this one lives in the distance between those two figures rather than in a loss on any single job.
Gross margin over the same bands runs % to 20%, against a CFOS target of 10%.
THE SYSTEM THAT FIXES THIS.
Cost codes built against the estimate, so a job can be read while it runs.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
