ᐅ Civil engineer calculates excavator performance based on tons – any experiences?

Hello dear forum,

Today we received a quote from the civil engineer for the excavation work.

His task is to load the soil onto articulated trucks, which will be provided by the landfill.

Instead of charging for labor as usual, the civil engineer charges €5 per ton of soil.

In our case, that amounts to 1000 tons, so €5000 plus VAT.

This seems very expensive to us, considering he plans to operate the excavator for only two days.

From my research online, excavator rental and operator costs usually max out at around €1000 per day.

Therefore, we are wondering whether he is making additional profit from our soil or if the €5/ton or €5000 fee is justified?

Cool, that cheap? Where exactly could that be for 5000 euros? Some people here would be happy if they could stay under 20,000 euros. Of course, a lot depends on the quality of the soil, but that sounds like a bargain.

NeuerBauherrHE schrieb:

The tractor-trailer trucks are provided by the landfill.

And are there no landfill fees, or is that billed separately?

If the excavator operator only needs to invest the time, then as you said, that’s about 2 days of labor plus machinery.
(1000 tons are approximately 675 cubic meters, excavation pit 15 x 15 x 3 m (49 x 49 x 10 ft)?)

Thoughts on this:
If you charge by the hour, you will keep paying even if, for some reason, no tractor-trailer is currently on site.
Why does the landfill provide the trucks? Did the groundwork contractor include this in the quote, or are they doing it as a favor?
It is rare to get a fixed price from a groundwork contractor. Most prefer exactly that.

Look at what you get for the money, not the breakdown of individual items.

driver55 schrieb:

And are there no landfill fees, or are those charged separately?

If the excavator operator only has to invest time, then as you said, that’s 2 days of labor plus machine use.
(1000 tons are about 675 cubic meters, excavation pit 15 x 15 x 3 m (49 x 49 x 10 ft)?)

Our excavation pit is 10 x 20 x 3 m (33 x 66 x 10 ft). Landfill and transport are charged separately and cost us 30,000€.

The offer actually includes earthworks and sewer work for the basement at 5,000€. The scope of work doesn’t mention that the digging would be charged separately.

We found a cheaper landfill, but they can’t provide as many tractor-trailers.
If they charge by the ton, I could theoretically take my time and let the excavators wait.

hampshire schrieb:

Thoughts on this:
If you pay by time, you keep paying even when there happens to be no truck on site for some reason.
Why does the landfill provide the trucks? Did the civil contractor include this in their offer, or are they doing it as a favor?
It’s rare to get a fixed price from a civil contractor. Most prefer exactly that.

Look at what you get for the money, not the breakdown of individual items.

Well, that’s the problem. The civil contractor wants a high frequency. They are handling three parties in one go, and €5000 per party is a lot of money. With VAT, that’s €6000 per party. To us, the daily rate seems too high.