Bid traps: scope gaps that cost specialty subs money
Twelve conditions that quietly turn a won job into a lost one. None of them are exotic — they're the ordinary places where a drawing set contradicts itself, where a requirement lives on a sheet your trade doesn't normally open, or where two assemblies look identical on plan and cost nothing like each other to build. Grouped by trade, with the drawing each one hides in.
Flooring
Nº 1The finish schedule says LVT-1, the plan tag says CPT-1
Whichever one you priced, the other one shows up in the change order — against you. Finish schedules and plan tags disagree on most sets somewhere, usually in a handful of rooms that were revised late. The fix is to reconcile every room against both documents before measuring, and to raise the conflict as an RFI rather than quietly picking one. A takeoff that doesn't tell you where the set contradicts itself has made the decision for you without saying so.
Nº 2Moisture mitigation "where RH exceeds spec" is an open allowance
The spec makes mitigation conditional on a test result that doesn't exist at bid time, which leaves the exposure sitting with whoever priced the floor. Qualify a square footage or you own the whole slab — and on a slab-on-grade podium that is a very large number to absorb. The workable answer is to measure the slab areas the requirement could apply to, carry a quantified allowance, and state it in your bid so the risk is visible rather than inherited.
Drywall & steel stud
Drywall & steel stud takeoff services →
Nº 3Head-of-wall deflection details hide in the structural set
Anticipated deflection, slotted track and slip-clip requirements are routinely specified in the structural general notes and never repeated on the architectural partition types. Price partitions off the architectural alone and every top track is wrong — on every wall, on every floor, which is what makes this one expensive rather than merely annoying. Read the structural general notes before the partition legend, and count rated head-of-wall assemblies as their own lineal-foot line.
Nº 4Rated shaftwall counted as standard partition
Same square footage on plan, different assembly, roughly twice the labour. C-H studs and liner panel go up nothing like a stud partition, and shaftwall hides in the ordinary places — elevator shafts, stair enclosures, service risers. Type marks first, areas second: if the takeoff is organized by wall type mark rather than by location, this one can't happen.
Glazing
Nº 5Spandrel shown on elevations, missing from the glass schedule
If your glass quote followed the schedule, you just bought the spandrel. Elevations and glass schedules are produced at different times by different people, and the panels that get added late to an elevation are exactly the ones that never make it into the schedule. Reconcile them panel by panel before anything goes to a supplier, and on a tower elevation that reconciliation pays for the takeoff several times over.
Nº 6Sealant joints get measured twice by GCs and zero times by subs
Perimeter sealant at head, jamb, sill and every transition to an adjacent assembly is lineal footage with labour and access attached. Subs routinely leave it out on the assumption it's incidental; general contractors routinely assume it's included. Measure it by joint condition — or it's free work, and on a fully glazed building it is a great deal of free work.
Misc metals
Misc metals takeoff services →
Nº 7Embeds live on S-sheets, the rail lives on A-sheets
Bid one set and half the package is somebody's assumption — usually yours, discovered after the concrete is poured. Embeds, weld plates and anchor bolts are drawn structurally while the item they support is drawn architecturally, and they have to be on site before the pour, so the discovery is late as well as expensive. Division 05 is the trade where reading both sets isn't thoroughness, it's the minimum.
Nº 8"Miscellaneous metals as required" means everything nobody else claimed
It's a blank cheque written in spec language, and general contractors read it exactly that way in a scope meeting. Exclude by list, not by hope: an itemized list of what you actually measured and priced is defensible, and a blanket qualification is not. If the takeoff hands you that list, the qualification writes itself.
Painting
Nº 9"Site-painted" vs "pre-finished" doors is decided in Division 08
That decision lives in the door schedule, not in the Division 09 finish plan, and it's never repeated where a painter would look. Count doors from the door schedule, not the finish plan — otherwise you either price factory-finished leaves you were never supplying, or miss a few hundred sides that were always yours. On a large institutional set, either error is material.
Nº 10Exposed deck spray isn't on the finish schedule
It's a reflected ceiling plan item. On an open-ceiling project the deck, joists, hangers and exposed structure can be the largest painted area in the building, and the room finish schedule says nothing about any of it. Check the RCP or you missed a level's worth of work in a single line — and the spray rate, access and masking that go with it.
Concrete & formwork
Concrete & formwork takeoff services →
Nº 11Formwork is priced on contact area, not concrete volume
A thin wall with two faces costs more to form than a thick one with the same cubes. Forming is paid for the surface your crew builds, ties, strips and cleans, and there is no reliable factor that gets you from cubic metres to contact area. Any takeoff that gives you volume and expects you to derive forming from it has handed you the risk along with the number.
Nº 12Housekeeping pads are shown on the mechanical drawings and poured by you
They're drawn with the equipment they serve, not on the structural plans, which is exactly why they get missed. Read the M-sheets or they're a freebie — and in a building with a full mechanical room that's a long list of small pours, each with its own edge form, its own finish and its own mobilization.
These twelve are the recurring ones. The trade pages carry six more apiece, specific to each scope — and every takeoff we deliver puts the ones found in your set onto a written assumptions and exclusions page, with the sheet each came from.
Send the drawings.
We'll find the ones in your set.
Drop a link through the quote form or email info@sharpbid.ca. A fixed price and a guaranteed delivery date come back within 4 business hours.