What a concrete cutting quote needs from you

The difference between a same-day price and a week of phone tag is almost never the contractor — it is the request. Estimators price concrete cutting from a short list of facts; when the facts arrive complete, the number comes back fast and holds. This guide is that list.

The universal five

Every cutting method — coring, wall sawing, slab sawing, wire — prices off the same skeleton:

1. Element — slab, wall, beam, column, foundation. And where: floor level, interior/exterior.
2. Dimensions — hole schedule (“14 × 4 in cores”), opening size (“one 6 ft × 8 ft opening”), or cut length (“120 linear ft of trench, 12 in wide”).
3. Thickness — measured, from drawings, or an honest “unknown, 1990s office building.” Estimators can price a stated assumption; they cannot price a blank.
4. Material — reinforced concrete, post-tension, CMU, or unknown. PT status matters enough that it has its own guide.
5. Access & occupancy — how equipment reaches the work, and who is around it: occupied above/below, finished surfaces, elevator dimensions, distance from parking.

Add timing — business hours, nights, weekend, and the date the work must land — and the estimate has everything structural it needs.

The scope-split questions

Cheap-looking quotes usually hide an unanswered boundary question. Settle these in the request:

• Layout: does the crew locate cuts from drawings, or cut to marks your trades place?
• Scanning: GPR included, by others, or excluded?
• Debris: cores, cut panels, and trench spoil — hauled by the cutting crew or left for your dumpster?
• Slurry: contained and disposed by whom? (Never a storm drain.)
• Patch-back: pour-back, firestop, and finishes are almost never the cutting scope — confirm who owns them.

Photos and files: what actually helps

Estimators read photos the way you read plans. The useful set:

• Wide shot of the work area showing context and access
• Close shot of the element with something for scale (tape measure, hard hat)
• Both faces of any wall being cut
• The route — corridor, elevator, stairs the equipment must travel
• Drawings if they exist: penetration schedule, structural sheet, or even a phone photo of a marked-up plan. PDF, image, whatever you have.

A 30-second phone video walking from the parking lot to the work spot outperforms three paragraphs of description.

Good vs vague — one example

Vague: “Need some holes drilled in a slab in Miami, how much?”

Priceable: “12 cores, 4 in diameter, through an ~8 in elevated deck, 3rd floor office building in Doral. Building is 2005 construction, likely PT — need scanning. Freight elevator on site. Occupied floor below, work must be nights. Penetration schedule attached. Need holes done within 3 weeks.”

Same project. The second one gets a real number back without a site visit; the first gets a request for all of the above, one question at a time.

Where to put it all

The request form mirrors this checklist — element, dimensions, material, GPR status, timing, files — and marks every technical field as skippable, because “unknown” stated honestly is itself useful information. Fill what you know; upload what you have; the estimator does the rest.