What Belongs in “General Conditions” on a Construction BOQ
General conditions don’t build anything you can point to on site — which is exactly why they’re the section of a BOQ most likely to be under-priced.
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What General Conditions Actually Cover
General conditions are the project-wide costs required to run and support construction, but that don’t belong to any single trade’s physical scope of work. Project management staff, site supervision, temporary facilities, safety programs, permits, insurance, and project closeout requirements all live here — costs the project incurs simply by existing and running for its scheduled duration, independent of which specific trade is on site that day.
Because these costs don’t map to a measurable quantity of concrete or drywall, they’re structured differently in a BOQ than trade-specific items — usually priced by month, by lump sum, or by a defined allowance, rather than by unit quantity.
Typical General Conditions Line Items
Project Management & Supervision
Project manager, superintendent, and site staff salaries for the duration of the project — usually the single largest general conditions cost.
Temporary Facilities
Site office trailers, temporary power and water, sanitation, and site security fencing.
Safety & Permits
Safety officer time, PPE programs, building permits, and inspection coordination fees.
Insurance & Bonds
Builder’s risk insurance, general liability, and performance/payment bonds where required.
Testing & Quality Control
Third-party materials testing and special inspections required by the building code.
Closeout Requirements
As-built drawings, operation and maintenance manuals, warranties, and final cleaning.
Percentage Allowance vs. Itemized Pricing
Many bidders default to pricing general conditions as a flat percentage of construction cost — often somewhere in a 5–15% range depending on project type and duration. It’s fast, but it disguises the actual cost drivers and makes it very difficult for an owner to challenge or verify the number during bid review.
An itemized general conditions section, priced line by line against actual project duration and staffing needs, is far more defensible and far easier to compare across bidders — because a reviewer can see exactly what’s driving the number rather than trusting a single blended percentage.
General Requirements, Itemized From the Start
Our Construction BOQ Template dedicates its own division to General Requirements — not a vague percentage buried in the total.
Why Duration Drives So Much of the Cost
Unlike most trade-specific BOQ items, which scale with physical quantity, general conditions scale primarily with project duration. A superintendent’s salary, a site office rental, and temporary power costs all accrue by the month regardless of how much concrete gets poured that particular week — which means any change to the project schedule directly changes the general conditions total, even if the physical scope of work stays exactly the same.
This is why schedule slippage is so costly beyond its obvious direct impact: every month added to a project’s duration adds a full month of general conditions cost on top of whatever caused the delay in the first place, a compounding effect that’s easy to underestimate when a schedule extension is first being discussed.
Florida-Specific General Conditions Items
Florida projects carry a few general conditions costs that don’t apply uniformly everywhere. Builder’s risk insurance often costs meaningfully more in Florida’s wind and flood exposure zones than in lower-risk regions. Threshold building inspections, required under Florida law for taller or higher-occupancy structures, add a dedicated special inspector cost that many general conditions estimates from other markets simply don’t anticipate.
Hurricane season scheduling considerations — temporary tie-downs, wind mitigation for partially complete structures, and potential weather-day contingency — are also worth an explicit line item on Florida projects with a construction period spanning June through November, rather than an assumption that gets absorbed silently into overall contingency.
Built for the Florida Market
Our template’s General Requirements division already accounts for Florida-specific cost factors — not a generic national template retrofitted after the fact.
How to Structure This Section in Your BOQ
Give general conditions its own clearly labeled division at the front of the BOQ — typically Division 1, General Requirements — itemized into the categories above rather than a single lump sum. This mirrors how the rest of the document is structured and gives reviewers the same level of transparency into project overhead that they get into concrete, steel, or finishes pricing.
Where possible, tie duration-driven items explicitly to the project’s assumed schedule (e.g. “Superintendent, 14 months at $X/month”) so the underlying assumption is visible and easy to reconcile if the actual schedule later changes.
Frequently Asked Questions
It varies widely by project type, size, and duration, but a rough range of 5–15% of total construction cost is common — smaller or shorter-duration projects tend toward the lower end.
No — general conditions are direct project-support costs (staff, temporary facilities, permits), while overhead and profit are the contractor’s business-level markup on top of the entire project.
Because most general conditions items — supervision, temporary facilities, site office — are priced by time rather than quantity, so any schedule extension directly adds cost.
Itemizing is more defensible and transparent, especially for bid comparison, though a percentage can be reasonable for very early, conceptual-stage budgets.
Yes — items like threshold inspections, elevated builder’s risk insurance in wind/flood zones, and hurricane season scheduling considerations are Florida-specific factors worth their own line items.
The general contractor’s project manager, tracking actual spend against the BOQ’s general conditions allowance throughout the project duration.
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