how much would you quote

Status
Not open for further replies.
electrofelon

electrofelon

Senior Member
Location
Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
Rural area, male/set a pedestal, 200A meter main with feed through lugs, 4/0 urd in pvc, piece of rigid at pole, a few GFCI's with in use covers, a plug for an RV, 125 feet from pedestal to pole. Can give a figure with or without digging the trench. Just curious what others would say, its one of those jobs that doesnt take very long but you can charge a lot more than you would get at an hourly rate. I said $3400 including digging, now paranoid I was too greedy.
 
I would quote a price based on what I need to stay in business and make a profit. If you are just pulling a number out of a hat then you are headed for trouble. If you are not confident in your numbers then the customer will sense that and you will not get the work.
 
electrofelon said:
Rural area, male/set a pedestal, 200A meter main with feed through lugs, 4/0 urd in pvc, piece of rigid at pole, a few GFCI's with in use covers, a plug for an RV, 125 feet from pedestal to pole. Can give a figure with or without digging the trench. Just curious what others would say, its one of those jobs that doesnt take very long but you can charge a lot more than you would get at an hourly rate. I said $3400 including digging, now paranoid I was too greedy.
Click to expand...

Doesn't sound like a lot to me. A while ago on this forum we were talking about services and it seemed $1800 was about minimum on a 200a overhead. So you are including the trench, 125 feet of pipe and wire(unless the poco provides the wire), plus you have more than a day with inspection and meeting the poco for the pull, plus the odds and ends.
 
You need at least $1200 in conductor from the pole to the pedestal
Conduit schedule 40 about $125
GFCI assuming (3) @ 15 = 45
RV plug about $20

total material + odds and ends = $1668

that leaves you $1732 for trench labor, your installation labor, your time with the inspector, gas, .........
 
Aluminum urd is about 3 bucks a foot so the wire bill is only about $500. Materials will be about $1400 leaving 2K for two days of work which seems like a lot if you think about it that way. But it doesnt seem like much when the guys who own the property drive up in a few weeks for a weekend of hunting and can turn on a light, plug in their RV, and didnt have to do squat other than pay $1100 each, and they have the electrical infrastructure set up for their future camp. I guess its like other services which can be a grand for a days work. Just wondering if this seems fair. Come on dont be bashful, what would you want? I have heard and understand the 'dont worry about what the other guy is charging" argument and it has its place, but to think that we are totally immune to the free market is ridiculous. I dont know about you, but my phone is not ringing enough to throw out cushy numbers and not worry about what the other guy is doing.
 
electrofelon said:
Aluminum urd is about 3 bucks a foot so the wire bill is only about $500. Materials will be about $1400 leaving 2K for two days of work which seems like a lot if you think about it that way. But it doesnt seem like much when the guys who own the property drive up in a few weeks for a weekend of hunting and can turn on a light, plug in their RV, and didnt have to do squat other than pay $1100 each, and they have the electrical infrastructure set up for their future camp. I guess its like other services which can be a grand for a days work. Just wondering if this seems fair. Come on dont be bashful, what would you want? I have heard and understand the 'dont worry about what the other guy is charging" argument and it has its place, but to think that we are totally immune to the free market is ridiculous. I dont know about you, but my phone is not ringing enough to throw out cushy numbers and not worry about what the other guy is doing.
Click to expand...

But my cost and overhead may be completely different from yours for many reasons, including you are in NY, I am in NE. I may have lower cost in some areas and higher in others, you may have shorter drives to some of your projects, but may spend just as much or even more time in traffic than I do. You may spend time as supply house or HD or whatever, I am hardly in those places, I call them with what I want and they deliver to me, on specific days of the week. They are a 45 mile trip (and back) for me if I do go to them, so it doesn't happen a lot. Because they are that far away I do stock more inventory than I would if they were only 5 or 10 miles away. A one man shop no matter where he is at doesn't have to pay payroll taxes, workers compensation, etc. He also does not have employees that need to be paid even if not doing "billable" work. Someone needs to clean the shop, load/unload trucks, inventory, maintain equipment and tools, etc. and do other tasks that are not direct income producing tasks, and the more employees there are usually means there is more of those things that need to be done at times. in a one man shop that one man has to do all of that, but there also is not as much activity by others creating some of those extra tasks so that works itself out to some extent. But at same time a larger shop may have to spend more time looking for projects if they want to keep their guys busy, where the one man shop may get many requests for work but can only do so much as one person and either needs to turn down jobs or expand if in that situation. The biggest step though is expanding to that first employee, because of payroll, workers comp, and the need to have constant projects to provide constant employment if you want to keep your worker(s). If you can't provide them with continuous employment they are likely to look for it elsewhere.
 
electrofelon said:
Materials will be about $1400 leaving 2K for two days of work which seems like a lot if you think about it that way.
Click to expand...


When I think of all the bills I have to pay, tools, insurance, vehicle cost, fuel cost, permits and the fact that Uncle Sam will try to take a third of it then 2K for 2 days doesn't seem that much to me at all.

If I made that every day it would be one thing but I normally will have to bid at least three jobs just to get one that pays well so don't forget about all the non billable hours.

I think your price is pretty good and would be normal for an EC but the customer can always go price shopping and if he calls enough people he will get a cheaper price and there is nothing you can do about it. But I would rather make a thousand dollars on one job than $500 ea. on two jobs. If you get to cheap there is a point where you really can't even afford to warranty the job.:thumbsup:
 
electrofelon said:
Aluminum urd is about 3 bucks a foot so the wire bill is only about $500. Materials will be about $1400 leaving 2K for two days of work which seems like a lot if you think about it that way. But it doesnt seem like much when the guys who own the property drive up in a few weeks for a weekend of hunting and can turn on a light, plug in their RV, and didnt have to do squat other than pay $1100 each, and they have the electrical infrastructure set up for their future camp. I guess its like other services which can be a grand for a days work. Just wondering if this seems fair. Come on dont be bashful, what would you want? I have heard and understand the 'dont worry about what the other guy is charging" argument and it has its place, but to think that we are totally immune to the free market is ridiculous. I dont know about you, but my phone is not ringing enough to throw out cushy numbers and not worry about what the other guy is doing.
Click to expand...

seems about right to me.... friend of mine and i were talking 5 years ago, and when
you are saddled up and rocking, $1k a day is about what it takes to make it thru the
thin spots, the oopsies, and the unforeseen delays.

that sounds like gouging. it isn't. my net taxable this year will be under six figures.
my spouse is low six figures, and doesn't have to provide $60k in tools, a $2m insurance
policy, etc. etc.

my auto mechanic is $85. my diesel mechanic is $115. my financial planner is 2.75% of
the yield. my dentist is $1,300 for a root canal.

my "holding the phone in your hand and not using it" ticket was $650 from the corrupt city
of compton.

i left the house at 8 am today. i got back at 5 pm today. my billing was $1,625 across three
jobs. my net after material, before my fixed costs of doing biz, was $1,200.

it's about $100 a day to keep the pump primed. so my net taxable income was $1,100 for
the day. so you get two or three days a week like that, and it's looking pretty good.

next week, i have two money days so far. we shall see what turns up.

if your work picture is anything like mine, your number was fine. what if that ditch you
have to dig, the smallest rock you find in it is the size of an IBM selectric typewriter?
 
electrofelon said:
I said $3400 including digging, now paranoid I was too greedy.
Click to expand...

The truth is I never worry about over bidding a job. I constantly worry that I have left something out and have under bid a job. The way I figure it is that if I did over bid the only thing I have lost is the time it took to look at the job and the time needed to price the job and maybe a little fuel. On a job like this I may have a total of 3 hours and hopefully not over $20 in gas so I can afford that with no problem. If you under bid you can lose a thousand very easily. I can't afford to throw that kind of money away.

if you bid cheap there is always a chance that someone will need money even more than you and bid cheaper. Years ago I tried to almost give work away and I learned my lesson.
 
Thanks for the replies, good info. I am pretty honest and modest and it just seemed like a lot for two days work, and the fun of digging with the tractor for half a day :) True and very good point, this job can make up for a few days last week I was out for 9 hours and only could bill for 4 of them......and all that paperwork I did till 1:00 am, and........
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top