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Checked out the new city hall in Tacoma and the floor pattern is a real head scratcher
They just opened the place and I went in to see the work. The main lobby has this huge, complex herringbone pattern with three different wood tones. It looks cool, but the install is wild. The pattern changes direction at every single column, which means there must be a thousand tiny cuts. I counted at least five different guys working on it when I was there. How do you even bid a job like that without losing your shirt? Has anyone tackled a public job with a pattern that complex and how did you price the labor?
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luna_wright6mo ago
That 40% waste number from Michael is no joke. We had a similar thing on a courthouse job with a custom border, and the off-cuts filled a whole dumpster. You just have to build that into the bid as a known cost, like mila said, or you'll be paying for it later.
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kimmurphy4mo ago
You can't just let the crew figure it out as they go on something that intricate either, you need a few days of just layout and dry runs before anyone even mixes thin set... that's where the real time gets burned.
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milarodriguez6mo ago
Actually, that kind of install is where the real skill shows up. Bidding it just means knowing your crew's speed and adding a good buffer for the fussy cuts. You price the labor high enough to cover the headache, or you don't take the job. Public jobs often have those showpiece details because the budget can handle it, unlike most houses. A sharp foreman lays it out so the waste is controlled, and the crew just follows the lines. It looks wild, but it's just methodical work.
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