Board, framing and finish — counted properly.

What gets counted

Quantities broken out by area, by level and by wall type — so when the GC asks why the third floor is dearer, you have an answer.

The things that actually blow up a drywall bid

Most of what goes wrong on a drywall package isn't the board count. It's these, and they get looked at on every job I price.

• Finish level buried in the spec. Level 5 across a lobby is not Level 4 with a bit extra — it's another full skim and a different labor number. It's usually in the finish schedule rather than the wall types, which is exactly where it gets missed.
• Deflection details at the head of wall. A slip track, a firestop joint system and a rated head-of-wall assembly all price differently, and the drawings often show one while the spec calls another.
• Wall types that change at a level. Partition schedules that read one way in plan and another in the details. I flag the conflict rather than picking the cheaper one and hoping.
• Heights taken from the wall type, not the section. Deck-height partitions priced as ceiling-height is one of the fastest ways to lose money on an interiors package.
• Backing and blocking nobody scoped. Grab bars, casework, TVs, handrails, equipment. It's small money per location and real money across a building.
• Waste factors applied like they're all the same. A corridor is not a curved bulkhead. Both get a factor; they don't get the same factor.
• High-Velocity Hurricane Zone detailing on Florida work — what it does to framing, fastening and sheathing, and what Miami-Dade product approval rules out of your assembly.

How your labor gets priced

Two contractors with the same takeoff should not get the same bid. Your crews hang at their rate, not an industry average.

So the first thing I'll ask is what you actually produce — sheets per man-day for hang, footage of tape or coats per day for finish, studs per man-day for layout and framing. If you track it, I price to your numbers. If you don't, I use mine and put them in the summary in plain sight so you can tell me where I'm off. After a couple of jobs together I'm calibrated to how you build, and the bids get sharper.

The same goes for the stuff that isn't production: scaffold and lift time, stocking, protection, clean-up, off-hours or phased work, and the small-tools-and-consumables number most people forget until they've already committed.

Who this is for