Am I too high?

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vilasman

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I am estimating the following job at about $34,000. Which I think is fair to low
Am I too high?

Here are the details....
The house is about 9000 sq ft

It is getting a 400 amp service
170 plugs
125 Switches, about 10 of which are 3 way networks and 3-4 of those have a 4 way switch
110 recessed lights
3 A/C units
3 furnaces
6 florescent lights
3 chandeliers, 2 of which are 22' ft up
5 pendant lights
11 Surface mount lights
6 outside wall lights
6 outside plugs
8 outside security lights 20' up
10 smoke detectors
6 cable and telephone outlets and ethernet

trash compactor
garbage disposal
2 dishwasher drawers
1 cook top
1 double oven
1 microwave oven

3 hot tubs
1 suana

6 bathroom exhaust fans and a range hood
I would be responsible for venting these to the outside and the house is a poured concrete exterior house with styrofoam insulation glued to the inside walls

The house has a three car garage
5 outside doors

4 bedrooms
4 bathrooms
a upstairs media room
upstairs laundry
a library
family room
living room
dining room
sunroom off the kitchen
 
More low end stuff

More low end stuff

I would sell them on more low volt stuff for a house that size (network cable phone). Also. Find out specifics of what they want the media room to do. They are probably going to be dissapointed at stringing speaker wire accross the floor. Whole house audio is a nice sell on something that size.

As for price, I agree with the rule of thumb already pointed out.
 
bphgravity said:
Find out the sale price of the home and figure 10% for the electrical contract. This is what it should be anyway...
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Bryan,

I have the highest respect for your opinions and code knowledge, but I have to question you on this one.

If a few slate fireplaces and meticulous stonework in the yard and on the building are added, should the electrical price go up?

If the least expensive siding, no upgraded carpentry, plumbing, or decorating and a miniature lot be the choices of the buyer, should the price go down?
 
Of course adjustments must be made based on actual construction/building specifics.

In this area, many builders raised the price of their houses by $60-120 thousand dollars over the last year without any quality changes or without increasing the amount they paid their subs. In my opinion, even though the amount of work and materials did not change, the value of the total product did. The electrical contractor should see this rise in overall value in their bottom line too.

When it comes to a custom home like the OP is suggesting, I wouldn't bid it for less than 10% regardless.

I would estimate that well over half of the electrical contractors in this nation are not properly charging for their services. This leads to shortcuts and underpaid workers.

I am so very happy I don't have to be in that rat race any longer.
 
bphgravity said:
In this area, many builders raised the price of their houses by $60-120 thousand dollars over the last year without any quality changes or without increasing the amount they paid their subs. In my opinion, even though the amount of work and materials did not change, the value of the total product did. The electrical contractor should see this rise in overall value in their bottom line too.

When it comes to a custom home like the OP is suggesting, I wouldn't bid it for less than 10% regardless.

I would estimate that well over half of the electrical contractors in this nation are not properly charging for their services. This leads to shortcuts and underpaid workers.
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I see the reason why your on easy street as a plans examiner & not in the rat race any more.
Bottom line is can you make money at the price quoted? Will your time on this be taken away from other more luctrative paying jobs? How bad do you really want this?
On a custom house of this scale you have to big by the unit & not the sales price of the house or square foot.

In Texas the builders on Custom 9000sqft houses were paying 3.50 to 3.75 ft before the copper price increases.
Make sure your draws cover your expenses.
 
You can sq ft the price on spec homes. But on a custom I would not sq ft it or go by the 10% rule. I never had heard of the 10% rule on a dwelling but I have on commercial projects.

On a home the builder usually supplies light fixtures, ceiling fans, lamps and appliances. The electrical contractor usually supplies breaker boxes, meter bases, wire, devices, basic cover plates and in some cases recess can light fixtures. We once did a house where we supplied the recess can lights and I told the contractor since it was his house we traded out. Then after we installed the 35 or so recess can lights I was informed that he wanted brass R-30 trim rings instead of the basic white. Now instead of being $3.98 for each trim ring they were around $22.00 each. The total bill for just the trim rings was around $ 750.00 if I remember correctly.

On a commercial project the electrical contractor usually supplies light fixtures and lamps. I always try to see how close to 10% my price is as I figure the price per sq ft just for a database. This 10% rule is ok sometimes for a new ground up building but what about a remodel? The best thing to do however is count each and every device and other pieces of work. Figure a cost for each one or unit price. Then add all the prices up, don't forget things like permits, underground marker tape, any grounding stuff and anything else that cost money. If it cost you money, then you have to charge for it. Instead of trying to be low bid everytime try for 2nd or 3rd place just to set a good base number. Everytime I tried to be low bid I usually was because I left something out.

You cannot give things away and stay in business for a long period of time. If you start giving money away then call me, I will take all you can give.

To me the price sounds ok for a home. Good luck on your bid !!
 
In my part of the country @ ten percent you would never get a job. Your not going to get $20,000 for a 1800 sq ft home selling @ $110.00 ft. We do new construction by the sq ft plus all add ons.
 
tufts46argled said:
In my part of the country @ ten percent you would never get a job. Your not going to get $20,000 for a 1800 sq ft home selling @ $110.00 ft. We do new construction by the sq ft plus all add ons.
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That is the problem with our industry. We have never and are still not charging enough for the work we do.

We had an IT guy some to our municipality to assist setting up a new computer system for the building department. He billed at $135 an hour. We currently have a consulting group performing a city pay study at over $90,000 for work a 3 person HR office can do on their own.

Why are we so behind the times? If we payed our workers what they are truly worth and performed worked at the quality we should truly give, and make a profit that we should truly earn, $20,000 is not unreasonable for a $200,000 home.

I know for a fact that one builder I use to get underpaid by could build their houses at about $64,000. They sold the homes near $300,000. And this was without the lot. :(
 
Don't get me wrong I'd love to be able to charge more, but I have to eat. There are still to many jake-legs out there that make it impossible! I am a licnessed master and run a fully insured merit shop.
 
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You want to make more money wiring a house? Go get your builders license, buy the lot, build/sell the house. You can then charge whatever you want for wiring it.

It really is a supply/demand thing. There is a large supply of people that can wire a house. The basics can be taught in about 2 months.

You can't expect to be paid $25 - $30 per hour for work that can be learned in 2 months.
 
I not complaining about what I make on houses. What I said in the begining if you charge 10% of the retail value in my area you would never get a job. If I wanted to be a GC then that is what I would do! I'm an EC and very happy with what I do!
 
On a home this size, unless you have some prety good actuals, to use for estimating, i would be very careful, sq ft is great for roofing, painting, and many other tasks in building, how about a sq ft of romex, GC's were use to dealing in sq ft estimates, and they understand sq ft, so somewhere along the way someone gave a sq ft bid on electrical by the square, it's not hard to see how electrical has no relation to sq ft, but they continue to supply estimates on this method, on production jobs, you can come up with a price to rough and finish a project, and then convert it to a sq ft. price, but somewhere, you had to establish a cost, to do that rough and finish work, and the only way to know the actual cost would be to consider all labor units required, and all material, any other method is guessing, a shot in the dark.

Custom homes of a larger scale, may require longer runs, working heights of more then 12ft, different spans to overcome, more outdoor runs, upscale lighting, more low voltage wiring, and critical placement needs, not your standard townhouse, or condo wiring.

You would be supprised how close an estimated figure comes to that 10%, this does not mean you should just tack on 10% for the estimate, rather estimate the job with unit costs and material, and a nice profit, then see if your in that 10% area! , If you are trying to be the low bidder on this type of job, it may be best to pass it by, and stick to something, you feel more comfortable with, custom home owners usually want quality work, more then lowest price.

Quote: "Why are we so behind the times? If we payed our workers what they are truly worth and performed worked at the quality we should truly give, and make a profit that we should truly earn, $20,000 is not unreasonable for a $200,000 home."

I agree, but our industry, has for years, tried to go the opposite direction. no increases for cost of living, little or no profit built in a job, and bidding jobs down, how low can you go!
 
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I love these discussions!
I have ben experimenting with my charges & you should try this too.
If customers don't comment on how high my bill is then I'm undercharging.
I'd have to say 98% of my service call customers don't ask how I charge. How about you?

When I act confident & professional, then my customers are intimidated to ask "how much"

I'm not afraid too loose any customer looking for a cheaper EC. You get what you pay for & they will call me back.

When They ask my hourly rate I'll tell them $85. But by the time I'm finished I will get $125 or more.

For example today I installed 4 cans (supplied by HO), tied to an existing switch & furnished a Ariadni dimmer.
1.5 hours & $390 the HO was happy!!

Try it for your self!
 
Quote:
"When I act confident & professional, then my customers are intimidated to ask "how much"

Their may be something to that.

The area i am in, the same old story, well if you charge more you will never get any work, no one will pay that much here, well all that went out the window, and now the same ones working for less then wages, have even less work, what happened is two new EC's moved in this area, a few years ago, and they started charging almost double what everyone else was asking, all the low ball EC's kept saying is, they will be out of business in weeks, well here we are 2 years later, and they are still here, only now, they have more trucks, and more employees, and they are busy all the time, the only difference i can see is they asked for the price, and they all have uniformed electricians, with clean well lettered trucks, other then that i see no difference.

My bet is, that in those areas where they say they can't get more, is they never tried to either.
It's always the same, you don't know my area, no one would pay that much, you would have no work if you did, but think about this, does GM, Ford or any other auto maker, price their cars lower in your area? can you buy a pair of sneakers for less in that area?
 
vilasman said:
I am estimating the following job at about $34,000. Which I think is fair to low
Am I too high?
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tommy-chong.jpg

No, man, I think you're right on...







Sorry, I couldn't resist. Carry on...
 
I'll weigh in on this one. We are a full service EC here in southern CA. We do alot of custom homes and, here at least, the plans have little to do with the finished product. I do not use sq/ft or % pricing but I do use sq/ft to double check my bid. All of these homes are as different as the owners who have them built but,out here at least, the sq/ft prices for custom home wiring is $4 to $8 without alot of fancy stuff. Out here it's not unusual to see the home theater contractor snag north of $250,000.00 just so the HO can watch a movie now and then!

Bob on the left coast.
 
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