Cost
Does a multi-trade project cost less than hiring three contractors?
The short answer
Combining trades can reduce repeated trips or setup, but savings depend on the project. There is no automatic bundle discount. Your written estimate covers the materials, labor and other costs for the agreed scope, so you can compare your options.
What genuinely comes down
Mobilisation. Three contractors means three first days on site — three crews finding the gate, three trucks parked, three sets of barricades and three cleanups at the end. Run through one company that happens once, and the hours that go into it get billed once.
Trip charges on small work. A cracked apron, a gate that drags on the concrete, a torn jacket on a chilled-water line — three separate call-outs become one morning with the right people already in the truck. On repair-sized work, batching is the single biggest thing you save.
How much that adds up to depends on the job. On a big pour with a lot of steel over it, one shared setup is a thin slice of a large number. On half a day of repairs, it is most of the bill. We will tell you which one yours is when we quote it.
What does not come down
Materials. Concrete is priced by the yard, steel by the pound, jacketing and blanket by the foot, and no supplier discounts any of it because the same customer also booked another trade. What we pay is what shows up on the line.
Labour hours. A slab takes the hours it takes to form, pour and finish. The cure wait before steel gets anchored into it is a real wait, not a scheduling habit, and booking the trades together does not shorten it. Same with permits, inspection fees and disposal — the city sets the first two, and haul-off is priced by what ends up in the dumpster.
So be careful with anyone promising a big percentage off for bundling. Either the single-trade price was padded to make room for the discount, or something is coming out of the job to pay for it.
What you save that is not money
The scheduling. One number to call, one calendar, and an order that is already worked out — concrete, then metal, then insulation, with the cure wait planned instead of discovered on the morning the steel crew shows up. The project planner will lay that out for whatever mix you tick; it gives you a time window, never a price.
The chasing. When one trade slips a week, the two behind it have to move as well, and you are not the one making those calls. That is the part people underestimate until they have done it the other way once.
And the risk that a mistake ends up belonging to nobody. When the anchor bolts do not line up with the slab, three contractors have an argument and you are standing in the middle of it. One company just has a problem to fix.
Why the estimate is itemised by trade
The written estimate breaks concrete, metal and insulation onto their own lines, with the work under each one spelled out. That is deliberate. It means you can set our concrete line next to a concrete contractor’s bid and compare like for like, and it means you can drop a line — pour the slab and hang the gate now, leave the insulation until the equipment is in and tested.
Rolling three trades into one number is the opposite of that. A single figure cannot be compared against anything, which is handy for whoever wrote it and useless to you. We would rather lose a line than win it buried inside a number nobody can read.
The real number comes after the walk-through. It is free, we measure every trade in the job in one visit, and the written estimate follows after scope and site review. See multi-trade projects for how the scheduling side works, or call (214) 603-9142.