Has anyone ever tendered or done work for the Federal Gov’t of Canada. We were contacted by the Public Works Dept regarding a seized property and they are looking for proposals from inspectors to inspect the property. The inspection would include a 1500 sf farm house, a barn and an outbuilding.
Any feedback or opinion would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark
By law the lowest bid wins regardless of quality of work.
I have not tendered as such for the government, other than on contract education and course development work. However, as a former RHI, (now retired) that was one point taken into consideration for insurance work and for federal government work such as for the RCMP, and provincial police.
I would state that is not always the case - often they have the right to accept or reject any/or all bids. Government work is not always based on price alone but in some cases based on a point system. This weights other factors into the process.
We have done this type of work for the goverment in the past. Just quote them what your rate would be and time fram to have the work completed. The last one I did I had a police esscort while at the property becasue there was someone still living the house. Just watch for mold and elecrtical problems.
Thanks for the replies.
Rob was it a farm residence you inspected? We currently don’t test for mould but we can obviously identify moisture and that a mould inspection would be recommended. They are also asking for some aux services such as photos of all appliances and fixtures, location and diagram of location of well/septic system if any and list of built in appliances and fixtures with model/serial numbers if applicable. For these services we billed individually on top of the standard inspection fee.
Any thing I should be concerned about if we were to win the bid?
Mark the properties that we have done were all in London. They did want pictures of the both in side and out ie all outside walls,every room and any defects found. From what I understand they will use the inspection to determine what repairs are needed before the property is put up for sale so it’s a prelisting inspection thats what it boils down too. We just used our normal contract and the normal fee plus extra for all the pictures. Someone from public works is on site at the time of the inspection and the sometimes the cops. Just do a normal inspection it’s that simple and disclaim for mouled if you do not test for it.Hope you get the job there easy no client looking over your shoulder.
Mark If they want mould inspection I’ll help you out.
Agreed!!
Claude
That’s old school, todays reality is lowest bid wins of course those bids have to be in line with each other. I worked with the Ontario gov’t and fedreral gov’t on many levels through my previous company and that is how every one who won their bid got it.(They now have to show fiscal responsibility and some of the winners had no business bidding and caused some major c**k ups. but sure enough they were there bidding on the next project.)
Gerry
Mark, is this the one in Elgin/ past Dutton, we called and told them it was out of our area and would have to charge more for it and would not be putting in a bid. From Hamilton you will have at least a 3 hour round trip.
Thanks to everyone for your input, much appreciated.
Yes Charles, this is the one in West Elgin. I’ve built in travel cost into the price breakdown. They can take it or leave it. I’m just happy that we were considered since they contacted us and not vice versa.
Just a follow to those who provided me with some feedback… We actaully won the bid. I’m somewhat surprised and happy, I didn’t really expect it.
Mark
Congrats!!!
Once in it’s easier the next time.
Where do you find the call for tenders?
What financial responsibility are they looking for.
Hey Vern, i’m not sure where you find the calls for tender. They found us???
The inspection went well it was one to remember, the report is done. They wanted a bit more info then a typical HI but nothing we could not handle.
The farm property was used as a grow op, which I suspected. The owner was still amazingly living in the the home, it was a total dump. Junk strewn everywhere!!! He’s currently being prosecuted. There was a OPP officer on site and a gov’t official as well.
Just though i’d follow up in case someone else decides to bid on one in the future. The nice thing is they give you 7 working days (Mon to Fri) to complete and submit the report.
Mark
“So if you have that much time you should not have missed anything” the lawyer says.