Free resource library
Every sheet on this page is free, is a tool rather than a teaser, and downloads as a PDF you can print and write on.
No email, no sign up, no upsell page in the middle. Open one, read it on this site, and take the PDF if you want it on the dash of the truck.
What is in here
A blank worksheet gives you the structure to work out your own number. A checklist makes sure you did not walk past the expensive thing. A reference tells you which standard the plan is calling for and links the authority that publishes it.
Every sheet is a tool or a cited reference. No sheet states a rate, a margin, a production figure or a method as though it came from Jay Voisey. Where a worksheet would be better with a worked example, the sheet says the example is coming once the module is filmed rather than inventing one.
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A blank one page structure for pricing a dirt job: scope, quantities, machine hours, labour, haul, materials, subs, the costs everybody forgets, and the arithmetic that turns a cost into a bid. Nothing is filled in, because the numbers are yours.
Who it is for. An owner-operator who prices off feel, off a competitor's number, or off whatever the customer said the last guy charged, and wants the same lines in front of him on every single job.
Everything on a site that has a cost attached to it, grouped so you can walk it in one pass and come back with notes instead of an impression.
Who it is for. Anybody who has driven away from a site walk, sat in the truck, and realised he cannot remember whether there was a power pole in the way.
The documents you are supposed to have read before you put a number on a job, and the ones that quietly decide whether the number holds.
Who it is for. Anybody who has bid off the grading plan and found the risk hiding in the specification or the subcontract.
What the one call law actually requires, what the paint colours mean, what the marks do and do not promise you, and the record to keep so a damage claim is somebody else's problem.
Who it is for. Every excavator. The legal duty is on the person digging, and it does not transfer to the customer who told you it was fine.
The competent person's daily inspection, written straight out of 29 CFR 1926 Subpart P, with the paragraph number next to every line so you can show an inspector where it came from.
Who it is for. Whoever is the designated competent person on an excavation. If nobody on your job has been designated, that is the first defect on the list.
The full structure for working out what one machine costs you per hour: what it costs standing still, what it costs running, what it costs to move, and the divisor that most people get badly wrong.
Who it is for. Anybody charging a machine rate he cannot derive. If somebody asked you tonight how you got to your hourly number and the honest answer is that it sounded about right, this is the sheet.
A per-machine record: the start of shift inspection the regulations require, the service intervals the manufacturer requires, and the repair history that tells you what a machine is really costing you.
Who it is for. Anyone who has sold a machine and been unable to prove it was serviced, or has argued with an insurer or a warranty department about a failure.
A one page daily ticket for work billed on time and materials: who was there, what ran, what got used, what got done, and a signature from somebody on site before anybody goes home.
Who it is for. Anybody billing hourly or time and material who has ever had an invoice queried three weeks later and had nothing but a memory to argue with.
A numbered register of every change from the moment it is raised to the day it is paid, plus the rules that decide whether a change is worth anything by the time you get to the end of the job.
Who it is for. Anybody who has done extra work on a handshake and then discovered that the contract had a notice period in it.
A pay application register that keeps the retainage total visible, the payment clock running, and the lien deadline in front of you instead of behind you.
Who it is for. Anybody who has finished a job, felt good about it, and then waited eight months for the last five percent.
What the standards on a utility plan actually mean: which specification governs which pipe, what SDR and class numbers are measuring, and where the installation practice is written down.
Who it is for. Anybody who has quoted a pipe, had the inspector reject it, and discovered that the plan and the specification were calling for two different things.
Everything you collect before a sub sets foot on your job, why each item exists, and the diary dates that stop a valid certificate from quietly expiring in the middle of a job.
Who it is for. Anybody hiring a trucker, a plumber, a concrete crew or another excavator, and anybody who has been asked by a general contractor for paperwork on a sub and had none.
A structure for working out what a slow month actually costs you, what is in the backlog, what money has to leave the account regardless, and what you are going to do about it before it arrives.
Who it is for. Anybody who has watched a winter arrive with a full equipment payment schedule and an empty calendar, and decided in January to take work he would have refused in June.
Every module and every lesson in Dirt Work Bid School, with an honest state marker on each one. 50 lessons, 19 written and 31 still being filmed.
Who it is for. Anybody deciding whether the course is worth their money, and anybody who wants the structure of a bidding curriculum to work through on their own.
Nothing matches both of those filters yet. Clear one of them.
Straight about what is missing
Where a worksheet would be better with a worked example, the sheet says the example is coming once the module is filmed rather than inventing one.
Every sheet that references a code or a standard cites it by number and links the issuing authority. Every OSHA, code or standard reference on these sheets carries its paragraph number and a link to the body that publishes it, so you can check it rather than take it.