Commercial contracting presents risks that can have substantial financial implications for budgets and in some cases kill projects all together. The good news is that a qualified and experienced project team can manage exposure to risk and plan accordingly to mitigate or avoid risk all together. Each sub trade has a unique set of challenges that pose risk and the window film industry is no different in this regard. We thought we would share some recent examples our project managers have run across that demonstrate the need to work with a qualified and experienced window film company to ensure that your project does not run into unnecessary & costly snags.
Inadequate Project Estimating
NGS was called to see if we help out because the ESCO’s regular ‘tinter’ walked off the jobsite. Our review put the specified product and quantities material costs at nearly $60k and Davis-Bacon labor costs were about $45k – turns out, the company that walked away had bid it at $60k turnkey. Now the ESCO is still on the hook to get the work done and will probably have to absorb $40k-$80k in costs to piece it together.
Inaccurate Savings Estimates
An ESCO brought an opportunity to us to provide engineering services and turnkey project pricing for a Convention Center. A window film manufacturer provided the ESCO with estimated payback from energy savings at 3.5 years using EFILM, the window film industry software. Using eQuest and much more appropriate building shells, HVAC efficiency, and occupancies we estimated payback at 14 years. Due to the discrepancy, the ESCO had their engineers determine payback which they concluded was approximately 12 years.
Unsatisfactory Work
NGS was brought in to complete a large scale frost striping project that the architect had removed (2) prior window film contractors from due to the quality of work and inability to accurately cut and install the intricate line pattern. The last of the (2) window film companies actually ended up scratching hundreds of glass lites when they tried to remove the film they had incorrectly applied. The project required that the lines be computer cut (not hand cut), masked and transferred to thousands of linear feet of interior glazing. The NGS project team adjusted the spec to suit the application, executed the computer plotting and installation that exceeded the architects expectations resulting in additional work in the building and on additional projects.
Contact our team of expert project managers and engineers to ensure you don’t hit any snags in your project. Call now 866.925.2083 or email us info [at] NationalGlazingSolutions.com
