Our Services

What’s the best way to get competitive bids,
and also make sure you get what you want?

Planning

We will help you analyze your needs and will give you estimates on the building size and features best suited for your material usage, your operational requirements, your site, and-of course-your budget.

Obtaining Competitive Bids

AST can provide customized construction plans and specifications for your bid package that can be used to obtain competitive bids on construction. Any contractor can bid on the project, and since the building is designed using generic materials, they can get their materials wherever they want. (This is different from some pre-engineered building companies, who obtain their income by selling the components.) This ensures a completely competitive bid process, which can be accomplished in either of two ways:

We can furnish complete working drawings and construction specifications for your bid package, stamped by an engineer licensed in your state. Contractors can do takeoffs easily from the plans. This eliminates guesswork and relieves the bidders of responsibility for design; you know exactly what you are getting, and when the bids come in, you are comparing apples to apples. In this case, the owner (or consultant) pays us directly for the plans and specs, and then the contractors do not have to include design costs in their bids.

We can give you a performance (design/build) type of specification. This is less detailed, and can potentially leave the door open to somebody coming in with a design that is not correctly engineered, or just might not be what you want. Still, some communities prefer this bidding method and we have specs you can use. If you choose this method, design costs would be included in each contractor’s bid.

Thus, the total cost for design and construction is the same either way.

We often work with local staff or consulting engineers on salt and sand storage projects Normally, we provide plans and specifications for the salt storage structure or salt shed (including foundations), and a staff engineer or local consultant handles site design, soils investigation, mechanicals and utilities, other structures if any, and project administration. We would be glad to discuss this with you in further detail.