Engineering and Contracting . ely to be misunderstandings whichmust be adjusted l>efore the w-ork progressesfurther. What the contractor has to sell isservice, and what the owner wants is results,and where this mutuality exists both partiescan accomplish the end for which they arestriving. The conservative contractor figuring on alump sum contract includes everything shownat a price for which he feels sure he can dothe work; then, as every emergency cantiotbe foreseen, he allows an item for contin-gencies, and finally adds a percentage for useof capital and profit. Under a fixed profitcontr
Engineering and Contracting . ely to be misunderstandings whichmust be adjusted l>efore the w-ork progressesfurther. What the contractor has to sell isservice, and what the owner wants is results,and where this mutuality exists both partiescan accomplish the end for which they arestriving. The conservative contractor figuring on alump sum contract includes everything shownat a price for which he feels sure he can dothe work; then, as every emergency cantiotbe foreseen, he allows an item for contin-gencies, and finally adds a percentage for useof capital and profit. Under a fixed profitcontract, however, where the contingent riskis assumed by the owner, a lesser profit willlie accepted by the same contractor becauseit is assumed that the total cost may bereduced by co-operation between contractor,engineer and owner in the matter of designand the purchase of materials. Under aver-age conditions a saving as great as 10 per centmay be made. The specialist will obtain lowerunit costs on the w^ork than a less experi-. Fig. 1. Diagram Showing Sub-division ofCosts of Reinforced Concrete BuildingErected by Aberthaw Construc-tion Co. in 1912. enccd man who is liable to submit a lowercompetitive bid. This is why the same qual-ity of work can usually be done at less costto the owner under the fixed profit basis andwhy a very material improvement in qualitycan be secured with very slight increase incost. If the owner wants to start as .soon ashe engages an engineer and before plans arestarted, he can save about six weeks tuncwith no serious ditTerencc of cost on thecost-plus-fixed-suni l>asis. There are several in details withthis type of contract. Its merit lies in remov-ing one of the most trying problems of thecontractor—his antagonistic relation to en-gineer and owner. Because the handling of reinforced con-crete is to a large extent a nianufacturingproposition, it is obviously more desirable tolei such work to specialists than to those ex-perienced only
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