Guide
Site visits before quoting: when to look at a pump job before you price it
The job description over the phone is a bedtime story. Twenty metres of line turns into seventy. Know which jobs are lying to you.
A site visit before quoting feels like unpaid time, and some weeks it is. But every operator has lived the alternative. Quoted a job off a phone call, turned up on the day, and watched 20 metres of line turn into 70 and 30 cube turn into 80. The phone description is a bedtime story. The site is the truth.
You don't need to drive out to everything. You need to know which jobs are lying to you.
When the phone is enough
A regular builder, a standard slab, a street you know, access you've used before — quote it off the phone and move on with your life. Photos and a pin drop cover most residential work if you ask the right questions. Line length from gate to pour. What the truck crosses to get in. Overheads. Where the agi stands. Where the washout goes. Make the builder walk the job with his phone camera. Two minutes of video beats twenty minutes of his optimism.
When you drive out
A new builder you've never worked with. Tight access, a sloping block, a battle-axe driveway. Anything with a long line run, a high-pressure mix, or a setup near an excavation. Any job where the number is big enough that getting it wrong actually hurts. Commercial sites that change shape every week. And any job where your gut says the description sounds a bit too easy — that feeling is the site visit paying for itself before you've left the yard.
On site, check the same list every time. Where the pump sits and what's under it. Overheads. The line route. Access width and the turn into the gate. Ground for the agis. Washout spot. Distance from base. Photograph all of it. The photo of the beautiful clear access you were promised is worth real money when you arrive on pour day to a skip bin parked in it.
The visit isn't free — price like it
Your ute, your fuel, your hour. That's cost, and it comes out of the same pocket as everything else. Module 02 — Know Your Real Rate — makes the point the hard way: unbilled hours are still hours. Either build site-visit time into your rates across the board, or charge it on the jobs that demand one and credit it back if the job books. Either way, stop pretending the drive was free.
What the visit really buys
The visit isn't just about the price. It's the first look a builder gets at how you operate. Turn up when you said you would. Walk the job properly. Ask sharp questions. Follow up with a written quote that names its assumptions — line length, cube count, access as sighted, waiting terms. You've just shown him exactly what pour day with you looks like. That wins work at rates the phone-quote blokes can't hold.
Quote blind and you're gambling with a truck attached. Look when the job warrants looking. Write down what you saw. Price what's actually there — not what the phone said.
