An $880K Plumbing and Mechanical Bid for a Public School Rebuild
A trade contractor bidding a Salt Lake City high school needed every pipe, fitting, valve, and fixture counted accurately enough to compete on a public tender.
About the Client
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Highland High School Rebuild
Highland High School is a 2-story public high school rebuild in Salt Lake City, Utah, covering 203,838 SF. Our scope was the plumbing and mechanical piping package.
Industry
Public Education
Year
2026
Services
Plumbing & Mechanical Estimate
The Challenge
Public school MEP drawings are dense, with many systems running through the same spaces.
A trade contractor needed every pipe size, fitting, valve, and fixture counted accurately to compete on a public bid, where the margin for error is set by whoever else is bidding.
$880K
plumbing and mechanical bid
13,500+ LF
plumbing piping taken off
260
line items by system and size
The Solution
We worked through the full plumbing set, P001 to P601, and the mechanical set, M001 to MF202, taking off 260 line items by system and pipe size: domestic cold, hot and recirculating water, sanitary and vent, roof and overflow drains, condensate, natural gas, and flues.
On the mechanical side we covered refrigeration, heating hot water, net energy loop, and condenser water piping, plus insulation, fittings, and control valves. Each fitting type and size was counted individually rather than carried as a percentage allowance.
Results & Outlook
An $880K plumbing and mechanical bid with labor and material split for every line, ready for the contractor to submit on a public project.
Plumbing accounted for $574K, or 65% of the bid, and mechanical for $259K, or 29%, with 2,988 LF of pipe insulation on the mechanical side.
End Note
Percentage allowances are where MEP bids quietly lose money. Counting each fitting individually takes longer, and it is the difference between a bid that holds and one that erodes in the field.
