Coppersmith
Senior Member
- Location
- Tampa, FL, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
Summary: I was asked to quote a rather large job with no design documents available. In order to quote the job I had to first design the system. I didn’t win the job so I wasted a lot of time and money preparing for the quote. Should I have been able to charge the client for my initial design work (which would have been turned over to them with my quote)?
The long version: About a year ago I received a call and was asked to quote a job at a storage facility. There were no other bidders as far as I know. I was told they had a mechanical company install four air conditioning systems spread around the facility. The job was to run power to these. It sounded simple enough.
I came over for a site visit to take a quick look around. I expected to spend about an hour gathering sufficient data to make an informed quote. The owner of the facility gave me a tour. It was a converted multistory factory building. He showed me each of the A/C systems. There were no prints or specifications, not even a sketch of what they wanted, or of the facility. They didn’t have a copy of the nameplate data. They had no idea where the power would be run from.
I ended up making three site visits and a bunch of phone calls to gather enough data to make the quote. I gathered the nameplate data which included going out on roofs and balconies. I searched for all the panels near the units to see if I could power them from there. (All the panels were full, so I could not.) I asked to see the electric rooms. Turned out there was only one and it was tucked in a far corner of this huge building. All the panels in there were full.
I decided another service with a main panel in the electric room and a new tap to the service drop was needed. This required calling the POCO engineer to find out if it could be done and how much it would cost. I measured the distance to every A/C machine, calculated voltage drop, wire size and pipe size. I determined the pipe routes, pipe supports, and wall/floor coring required.
I think it’s reasonable to say that all of the above information should have been supplied to me in design documents. Once I had gathered it all, I was able to price out the job. Bottom line: I spent a bunch of hours, i.e. money, designing this system and finally making the quote. And I didn’t get the job.
Normally, I don’t charge for quoting a job. I think prospective clients expect a free quote or estimate. Normally, jobs that are big or complex have design documents already prepared. This one did not. Thinking back on it I’m wondering if I should have said something like “Since you don’t have any design documents, I’ll have to prepare some before I can quote this job. The design documents are yours to keep and if you don’t like my quote, you can use them to get quotes from other contractors. Since it’s going to take a significant amount of time to prepare these, I will have to charge you $XXX.”
My question is: Is this something that contractors do? I wasted a lot of time and money trying to quote this job. If I ever see one like this again, I would have to decline to quote if I could not be compensated.
The long version: About a year ago I received a call and was asked to quote a job at a storage facility. There were no other bidders as far as I know. I was told they had a mechanical company install four air conditioning systems spread around the facility. The job was to run power to these. It sounded simple enough.
I came over for a site visit to take a quick look around. I expected to spend about an hour gathering sufficient data to make an informed quote. The owner of the facility gave me a tour. It was a converted multistory factory building. He showed me each of the A/C systems. There were no prints or specifications, not even a sketch of what they wanted, or of the facility. They didn’t have a copy of the nameplate data. They had no idea where the power would be run from.
I ended up making three site visits and a bunch of phone calls to gather enough data to make the quote. I gathered the nameplate data which included going out on roofs and balconies. I searched for all the panels near the units to see if I could power them from there. (All the panels were full, so I could not.) I asked to see the electric rooms. Turned out there was only one and it was tucked in a far corner of this huge building. All the panels in there were full.
I decided another service with a main panel in the electric room and a new tap to the service drop was needed. This required calling the POCO engineer to find out if it could be done and how much it would cost. I measured the distance to every A/C machine, calculated voltage drop, wire size and pipe size. I determined the pipe routes, pipe supports, and wall/floor coring required.
I think it’s reasonable to say that all of the above information should have been supplied to me in design documents. Once I had gathered it all, I was able to price out the job. Bottom line: I spent a bunch of hours, i.e. money, designing this system and finally making the quote. And I didn’t get the job.
Normally, I don’t charge for quoting a job. I think prospective clients expect a free quote or estimate. Normally, jobs that are big or complex have design documents already prepared. This one did not. Thinking back on it I’m wondering if I should have said something like “Since you don’t have any design documents, I’ll have to prepare some before I can quote this job. The design documents are yours to keep and if you don’t like my quote, you can use them to get quotes from other contractors. Since it’s going to take a significant amount of time to prepare these, I will have to charge you $XXX.”
My question is: Is this something that contractors do? I wasted a lot of time and money trying to quote this job. If I ever see one like this again, I would have to decline to quote if I could not be compensated.
