Butler Contractors
Ben Culwell
January 19, 2022
205-647-8000
Cell 205-587-1530
Ben's thoughts were the same concerning the rock. All of our rock will have to be scraped off and removed. The rocks are too big and "you cannot put asphalt on marbles." If we can find a place for it, they will not have to charge us to haul it off. If not, they will likely haul it back to the quarry, and it will be sold again.
He differed in that he thought most of the parking lot was firm. He said if the dirt was hard, they would pave directly onto the dirt. If it was not, they would bring in dense grade base rock to fill in those areas. He told me that the standard paving was 6 inches dense grade base rock, 2 inches of binder, and 1 inch of asphalt, but it did not appear as though they were going to follow that.
Neither did he say anything about hiring an engineer. I asked what they would do about puddles. He response was that they would slope the lot to each one of our drains and that was about all that could be done.
They do not do curbs but can reach out to those they use to do them. (I am supposing he will include that in the estimate.)
When asked about the keeping the trucks out, he did not think the curbing would help. His statement was "Big trucks will go pretty much where they want to go." He suggested, as a church member recently did, that we might put up one gate. He thought the appeal was that traffic could go in one entrance and out the other. (However on many occasions, I have watched garbage trucks, school buses, and the Pepsi truck turn into our northern most entrance, do a circle in the lot-sometimes all the way up to the drive through-then go back out the same entrance.) He did say we might keep them out by putting up concrete posts or bollards as we have discussed.
He pointed out something the others had not. If we put internal curbs the way we have planned, there will be no drain for the water in the lowest section of our parking lot. The curbs will create a holding pond as deep as the curbs are tall.
He noted, like a previous company rep, that the three handicapped spaces in front of the drive through are not up to code. He said that even if we removed them, we would have plenty of handicapped parking. Code requires one handicapped per 90 parking spaces.
He saw no problem with going against the wall in the back. Based on what the others have said about getting too close to the building, I did not ask him about it.
Their price would be based on units meaning if the square footage was more than estimated, the price would go up. If the square footage was less, the price would go down. This would be true for the linear length on the concrete as well.
Update: 1/28/2022
BEFORE YOU CLICK THE LINK, PLEASE READ BELOW:
I spoke with Ben yesterday to see how things were progressing. He told me then he had not found anyone to even estimate the curbing. Like Cottingham Contracting, he said the companies they use do not do jobs this small. So he sent an estimate based on the linear feet we estimated the job to be.
I also asked him if we needed to get an engineer. He said one would certainly be beneficial but that his people could pull the string on the parking lot to pave it. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT WHEN A CURBING COMPANY IS HIRED, THEY WON"T STILL INSIST ON A GRADE AND DRAINAGE DESIGN. As with Murray Paving, he is willing to pave without the design but the company he is using to do the curbing requires it to even give an estimate.
The two bids need to be compared to one another. I believe both will go up once the work is started but Butler Concrete will likely increase substantially more as this price does not include any dense-grade base material being brought in, or additional rock being brought in, or the parking lot being striped. We know the 15% we have added to the parking lot will require a foundation so these things must be done to that area if no other; and I think it is a given that there will be several places in the existing parking lot that will need to be dug out and filled with the dense-grade base material. Also note that the Butler bid does not detail any individual prices.
Also take note that Butler Contractors is estimating the paving to be 7,151 square yards while Cottingham Contractors only estimated it at 6,700 square yards. If Butler Contractors is corrected, we are increasing our pavement area by more than 22% rather than just 15%. That would not only increase Cottingham's price, it would also increase the amount of water build up on the paved area.
Okay. CLICK ON!
