Ask him to do both. Email and fax. If you can email usually you can fax.

Send as PDF's so they can't be editied. Follow-up with a call to be sure they were received.

Is this a single prime bid project? I would demand that they are either mailed or brough by in person by a preset deadline - no exceptions. How do you sign & stamp an email? How do you include a bid bond? Personally I've never heard of fax or email bids.

With some clients we frequently allow faxed bids. We always have formal bid openings for government projects but a lot of GC's tend to like faxed bids and some of our more seasoned clients like for us to just send the bid tab form over after the faxes come in. They don't want to be bothered with a bid opening.

The bid bond is faxed over and hard copies are delivered or mailed within a day or so. I'm kind of surprised that faxing works but I've never had a faxed bid come in late.

I was just curious if anyone else did emailed bids. It's probably the wave of the future!

We send estimates and contracts as PDFs - small company but it seems to work. E-mail is very traceable, datable and all... You can put passwords, watermarks, you name it on pdfs and since everyone can read them I prefer it to faxing because the quality of fax machines seems to vary so greatly. But if there are issues with your office system it may be hard to enforce deadlines - for example if you often have trouble figuring out whether something isn't coming through because of your system or the sender's. But we don't have too many issues with our service and have never had a problem...
The legal issues have probably not been addressed for the industry yet.

Hi, R.A. Maybe we'll try it and see how it goes.

is this not all covered in the bidding documents? are you not having a bid opening? is it open or private?

i question the fairness of the fax and email method for open public bidding. as soon as they're faxed or emailed, you'll know the bid amount. that could be days, hours or minutes before the actual scheduled bid opening. what if a bidder emails a bid 5 minutes late and you've already started opening bids AND it's the lowest bid of the lot. the other bidders would have cause to protest because they made it on time (again all this info is in the bid documents). late bids should be rejected unopened if bids have been opened. if bids haven't been opened, then a reasonable process can be done (like asking the other bidders if a bid 5 minutes late is acceptable- if no bids are opened yet).

Hi Mum - what happened with your job? We haven't seen you for a while...

I still say the only way it should be allowed is in a hard copy printed format. No electronic formats allowed. Really, it isn't the architects problem to make things easy for the bidding contractors. They have to read the front end of the documents and see what the rules are. It's just best when it's standard for all bidders.

agree with A. but recognized that many small projects and small bids may not attract any bidders / bids if you dont make it as easy as possible. [if you were bidding work say under xxxx, would you go clear across town to drop it] with bigger bids, definitely by hand/fed ex etc....

1] it forces them to be a bit more organized / not at the last minute and reflects a potentiall better bid.
2] it puts the burdon on them; whose to say their attachment doesnt exceed a certain size and gets bounced back time and time again. you will be put in a bad situation by not recieving it or stating it was late.

bids should be accompanied by bidders questions etc, unless you prequalified them so the files could get big.

there is potental risk here if things get screwed up.

I'm still at the same job. They threw enough money at me to keep me here. Thanks for asking!

It's an invitation bid. And I had a nearly impossible time getting the bidders we have. It's kind of a nasty little job. Single level parking deck, so not real appealing to GC's. I contacted 9 bidders, pushed the date back two weeks because they complained 4 weeks wasn't enough time and even then, 5 dropped out. I was tempted to bring cookies to the pre-bid. I would bet money that at least one bails out. The market is so hot here right now you have "cater" to the bidders a little just to get them interested.

One thing I was reminded of today - we started allowing faxed bids several years ago when bidders started not making bid openings because they were getting stuck on the beltway and couldn't get to our office. Heck, I even missed a bid opening two years ago because I couldn't get there. I had to call the client from I95 and tell them the interstate was closed. It took two hours to get back to my office.

TED, all (well, hopefully all) questions have been answered at the pre-bid or with addenda that have been issued prior to the bid opening. Questions are never allowed with bids. I also don't expect any issues about size of files. The bid form and bid bond aren't more than 6 or 7 pages. That's usually all that's submitted.

DEVIL DOG - you're right - usually if you get a late bidder and it's a formal bid opening you ask the other bidders if they mind. Usually they don't. Nobody want's to be the jerk in the bunch, but if one objects, they'll all jump in. Typically except for government bids, the client is not required to select the lowest bidder, and neither are they required to accept ANY of the bids. If the low bidder comes in late, the client can disregard all the bids and "negotiate" with the low/late bidder.

We've decided to go with the email bid. I'll let you know if it's a disaster. Bid "receiving" is at 4:00 on Thursday. Anyone up for a bid pool?

sorry, meant 'qualifications' v. 'questions'. even the small ones, i want references, track record on extras etc. i remember one project the guy didnt have any good references and just put them in thinking we would not call. surprise. he has things listed at the top of the sheet that he had gotten kicked off of and extras exceeding 150%...its always good to call even if these are the owner's contractors --

and it is those nasty little jobs you have to make so easy to bid and ya got to 'just do it'

good luck.

Don't you wish some contractors came with warning labels stuck on their business cards? Then we wouldn't have to get those nice little surprises.

Emailing was a success! All bids came on time and no glitches. Only one faxed a copy but they copied it by email. It was very convenient and I'd do it again.

They came in really high though. Not a happy client.

we do it in the office.

but if you do it a lot theres going to be that one time that all the contractors mess up and your schedule gets screwed...

how simple is it to use email? :D

hey Mum can't you talk the bids down?

"how simple is it to use email? :D" Good point :)

I think it's going to take full blown temper tantrum to get these bids down.

that sucks--usually we are looking at "rough draft" bids beforehand and talking to the contractors on what looks expensive and if the client would go for it... but our office kind of follows our own standards... good luck on all the drama :D

Thanks. This client started to negotiate with a contractor, got a price, then decided to test it by bidding. The bids were 15% higher because we lost a window for availability of precast. It's the kind of thing you kick yourself for but clients are always thinking they can get a better deal. It's really hard to talk them into going with what they've got sometimes.