The low bid on a parking lot is usually the most expensive one. A manager at a 180-unit apartment community collecting quotes from asphalt paving companies st louis mo will end up with three numbers that look comparable and are not. One contractor priced a mill and a new surface course. One priced an overlay straight over a failing base. The third priced sealcoat with fresh striping and called that a paving project. Bids only become comparable when the owner writes the scope, and that single move is what this checklist is about.
Scope Gaps Make Bids Look Cheap
A bid is a description of work before it is a price. The gap we see most often on a multifamily lot is the same short list missing from the cheapest sheet: base repair, tack coat between lifts, and restriping once the new surface goes down. None of those three are optional. All of them come back as a change order, usually mid-job, usually at a worse unit price than you would have negotiated in February with three bidders still competing. Against a $65,000 capital line, two of those extras eat the entire contingency and part of next year’s line.
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Put Thickness And Compaction In Writing
Write the numbers yourself instead of asking each contractor to propose them. If your scope says 2 inches of mill and 2 inches of new surface course, all three bidders are pricing 2 inches, and the one who intended to give you an inch and a half has to say so out loud. Compaction is the quieter half of the same problem, because a lift that was never rolled to density looks identical on delivery day and starts unraveling in year three. Ask for compaction testing and ask for the results handed to you in writing. MoDOT publishes its Standard Specifications for Highway Construction online at no cost, and skimming the asphalt section is a cheap hour for anyone in the St. Louis area assembling a paving packet for the first time.
Base Repair Belongs On The Bid Line
Overlaying a broken base buys you two winters. Every one of the asphalt paving companies st louis mo you invited should carry full-depth repair as its own line with a real unit price, say 1,400 square feet at a stated rate, so the quantity can move without reopening the contract. A stated unit price for base repair protects the budget better than a low bottom line. While we are on the subject of things managers defer, the dumpster pad is usually the cheapest concrete on the property and the first thing a prospective tenant photographs. That is a different memo. Back to the base: have each bidder mark the failed areas on a site drawing and total the square footage, and three guesses turn into three quantities you can actually compare.
Questions That Separate Three Paving Bidders
Five questions do most of the sorting, and you can get through them on the phone in ten minutes each. Read the answers for specifics rather than enthusiasm. A contractor who prices asphalt, concrete and drainage inside one scope can answer all five without stopping to call a subcontractor.
- What thickness are you bidding, and in how many lifts? A good answer names inches per lift and the mix being used.
- Is base repair inside the total or excluded from it? A good answer gives a square-foot quantity plus a unit price for anything past it.
- Who handles curbing, ADA ramps and the dumpster pad? A good answer is one crew on one schedule, or a named subcontractor you can look up.
- Where does water go once the surface is new? A good answer covers grade, inlets and what happens to the existing low spots.
- When can you start, and what would stop you? A good answer names a temperature cutoff and a cure window before striping.
Answers land in three groups fast. One bidder gives you quantities, one gives you reassurance, and one asks whether he can come look at the lot again. That third answer is not disqualifying, but it does tell you the first number was an estimate wearing a bid’s clothing.
One Packet Makes Every Bid Comparable
Write one scope, send it to all three, and the low number becomes useful information again. Put drainage in that scope too. Reading back through the federal pavement guidance in March 2026, the figure worth pinning to the front of the packet was the modulus loss: the Federal Highway Administration identifies water infiltration through cracks and the pavement surface as one of the leading causes of pavement damage, and reports that saturation alone reduces asphalt modulus by 30% or more. A bid that renews the surface and ignores the plugged inlet is not a bargain, it is a shorter warranty nobody wrote down. One packet gets you one scope, three genuinely comparable numbers, and ideally a contractor who prices the asphalt, the concrete and the pipe together, which leaves the change order nowhere to come from.
