How to Bid an Apartment Complex Pressure Washing Job

A house is one visit, one decision-maker and one visible surface. An apartment community is a portfolio of surfaces with different production rates, a chain of approval, resident access constraints and a budget cycle. Three things change how you bid:

Volume changes the rate, not the math. Your per-square-foot number drops on a 48,000 sq ft property, but your cost per crew hour does not. That is why every apartment bid needs a cost floor underneath the square-foot price.

Access is a cost center. Third-floor breezeways, gated courtyards, no accessible spigot, resident vehicles parked over the flatwork you quoted — all of it consumes hours that never appear in a takeoff. Walk the property before you price it.

The buyer is spending someone else's money. A community manager needs a document they can forward to a regional manager without translating it. That is a scope problem, and it is covered in the proposal template. Compare this against the other commercial tiers in commercial pressure washing contracts.

Never bid a multifamily property from satellite imagery. Book 45 minutes on site with the community manager and leave with all of this written down:

Measure each surface as its own line so you can price it at its own rate and defend it later. A wheel, a laser measure and the property's site plan get you within a few percent.

Building elevations. Length of the elevation × wall height, per elevation. Do not deduct windows and doors — you still have to clean around them, and they slow you down.

Breezeways and stairwells. Count them as units, not square feet. A breezeway includes ceilings, walls, stair treads, risers, landings and handrails, and it runs 3–5× slower per square foot than an open wall. Price it per breezeway.

Flatwork. Sidewalks are linear feet × width. Curbs are linear feet. Pool decks and mail kiosks are measured areas. Drive lanes should be separated out — they are usually a different rate and often a different visit.

Dumpster pads. Unit price each. Hot water and degreaser are required, and containment is usually required. Never fold pads into the flatwork rate.

Record everything on a takeoff sheet in the same order your proposal will list it. The commercial bid guide covers takeoff discipline across trades.

Build both numbers on every bid. They answer different questions.

Square-footage price answers "does this look like a market price to the manager?" It is your rate per surface × measured quantity. Managers compare it to last year's invoice.

Cost-plus price answers "will I make money?" Take your measured production rate (sq ft per crew hour per surface), convert the takeoff into crew hours, multiply by fully burdened labor cost, add chemicals, equipment, fuel, water recovery, mobilization, then add overhead, contingency and target margin.

Then bid the higher number. If the cost-plus price is dramatically higher than your square-foot price, you have an access or production problem — find it before you sign, not after.

Formula: Bid = (Direct cost × (1 + overhead%) × (1 + contingency%)) ÷ (1 − margin%)

Your labor number is not your wage. It is wage + payroll taxes + workers' compensation + benefits + nonproductive time. Build the burdened rate once and reuse it on every bid.

Chemicals scale with surface type: sodium hypochlorite blends and surfactants for soft washing, degreaser for pads, rust and oxidation treatments only if you quoted them. Track consumption per job so your chemical line becomes measured instead of guessed.

Equipment includes machine hours, surface cleaners, hose and reclaim gear, plus repair reserve. Fuel covers travel and machine run time. Water recovery — vacuum boom, berms, filtration, disposal — belongs on any bid touching pads or drive lanes; check your local rules through the EPA NPDES stormwater program and your city's stormwater department.

Insurance is a real cost line on multifamily work, because the limits and endorsements a manager requires are usually higher than residential. See property management vendor insurance requirements before you price it.

Mobilization is everything before the first trigger pull: staging, water hookup, resident notices, cones, protection of landscaping and fixtures. On a phased apartment job you mobilize more than once, so price it per phase.

Lifts, scaffolding or extension gear are separate line items with delivery, daily rate and pickup. If the property requires work outside normal hours — early mornings before residents leave, weekends, or overnight for drive lanes — price the shift premium instead of absorbing it.

Anything you add here should appear in the proposal as its own line so a manager can see what they are buying. If you are working through a SAM.gov registered public housing authority, expect additional documentation on top of this.

Enter your takeoff and your real costs. The calculator produces a square-footage price, a cost floor at your target margin, a suggested bid, price per building and effective revenue per crew hour.

"Maple Court" is an illustrative example, not a past project: 8 three-story buildings, 240 units, 48,000 sq ft of measured elevation, 22,000 sq ft of flatwork, 16 breezeways and 3 dumpster pads. Numbers below use the default inputs in the calculator so you can reproduce them.

Read the last two rows first. $107 per crew hour and a 49% realized margin mean the square-foot price is comfortably above the floor. If revenue per crew hour had landed under your shop rate, the fix is not a higher rate — it is a corrected hour estimate.

Contingency covers the specific unknowns you identified on the walkthrough: unmeasured second-story access, a pad worse than it looked, resident vehicles blocking flatwork. A 3–7% contingency on a well-walked property is normal; anything higher means you should re-walk instead of padding.

Margin is a business decision, not a job decision. Divide by (1 − margin%) rather than multiplying by margin — marking up cost by 35% yields only a 26% margin, and that gap is where a lot of contractors quietly lose their year.

Phasing does three jobs: it fits a budget, it gives you a schedule, and it creates progress-billing milestones. Split by building cluster, not by surface type, so each phase leaves a visibly finished section of the property.

Managers are not evaluating your pressure washing knowledge. They are evaluating whether hiring you creates work for them. Give them a document that answers every predictable internal question: what is included, what is not, when, how long, how much, who is insured, what happens if it rains, and who to call.

Attach your certificate of insurance, W-9 and a short reference list. If you have a capability statement, include it. Everything a manager wants formatted is in the apartment proposal template and the broader contractor proposal templates.

Almost none of these are about being too expensive.

Work top to bottom before you hit send.