Commercial Accounts Question

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bjp_ne_elec

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I have been moving towards more commercial work - as one reason you don't typically get "nickled and dimed" like you do in resi work, and resi is pretty slow in my area. Not many new homes being built, and due to the economic slow down (not to mention the stock market melt down) resi work has been real slow.

The question I have, is what I'm finding in a lot of the commercial work is businesses that may have moved in to an existing space, and they have no clue about what they have for electrical. What I mean there, is they never got any "as-builts" from the previous owner. I'm not talking a small space - typically these commercial buildings are 10,000 sq ft or more. Room numbers have been changed, most things are not labeled.

What do you guys do when you pick up an account like this. Do you recommend to the owner/manager just spending some amount of time to sort everything out? Do you go through the effort of analyzing load demand throughout the building? This most recent business I've been contacted by, they have about 20 panels scattered throughout the building, and it seems no one has as much as a clue what feeds what. I haven't even got a clear answer on what happened to the last EC they had there. The guy who is my interface is relatively new, so I'm working to try to pull the info.

The guy is indicating they want to start getting estimates - but with so many unsolved mysteries, I don't think I'm going down that path. I might ball park it, but the several jobs they laid in front of me - I can't even anticipate what I'll find once I get up in the ceiling. All the panels in the general area are full - but I highly doubt that all the circuits are actually being used - but it does take time to sort this type of things out.
 
masterinbama said:
I would price everything like you have to go new all the way.
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Thats great if he likes staying home and watching TV. :smile:

It really depends on what you are being asked to do.

Are you being asked to just add a few outlets or are they doing a major remodel?

Most of the time all the people in charge of these places care is 'Does it work?' Few customers are going to just let you clean things up when to them everything is working.
 
iwire said:
Thats great if he likes staying home and watching TV. :smile:

It really depends on what you are being asked to do.

Are you being asked to just add a few outlets or are they doing a major remodel?

Most of the time all the people in charge of these places care is 'Does it work?' Few customers are going to just let you clean things up when to them everything is working.
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They right now are looking for outlets in various locations. The main thing I'm struggling with is where I pull the circuits from. When I asked what the load is on what they plan to plug in, they simply said to give them a 20A circuit with quad outlet config in these various locations. But when I look around they have all sorts of things plugged in to these test racks. I guess they re-configure constantly. I guess I'm used to running circuits with known loads - maybe this is something I'll just have to get used to when dealing with commercial.

As far as pricing as it was new, it's not like things are wide open. It's a drop ceiling with insulation laying across all the tiles, so I just popped a few tiles, and it's a pain to get them out due to the blankets of insulation rolled out across all the acoustical tiles.
 
iwire said:
Most of the time all the people in charge of these places care is 'Does it work?' Few customers are going to just let you clean things up when to them everything is working.
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Iwire pretty much summed up my thoughts on this. I think you'll have a hard time convincing them to pay you to "clean things up". You've just got to deal with it and work it into your price. Unless the job really can't go forward because there's no space left in the panels. Then when you try to sell them a sub-panel or an upgrade "let me spend a day or two just cleaning it out" sounds more appealing.

bjp_ne_elec said:
When I asked what the load is on what they plan to plug in, they simply said to give them a 20A circuit with quad outlet config in these various locations. But when I look around they have all sorts of things plugged in to these test racks. I guess they re-configure constantly. I guess I'm used to running circuits with known loads - maybe this is something I'll just have to get used to when dealing with commercial.
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If they've just got a workbench or a test rack or something like that, just give them what they ask for. They probably know from past experience what they need, and it's usually enough. If they get more equipment they'll call you back to add more receps. Of course if they get some sort of specialized equipment - ovens, centrifuges, whatever- they have to be dealt with seperately.
 
Back in the good ole "tool pouch days", I did a little step that resuting in my obtaining a couple of good commercial customers. When I encountered one of these "messes", I would install what they wanted, then I would take some extra time, often 'eating' a portion of it, and trace down circuits, eliminate what I could and carefully label the panel making sure to work with them on proper identification and letting them know I just couldn't "walk off" without that panel looking decent. Many times, that assured me a flow of work from that customer.
Of course, it's totally dependant on the customer..some could care less.
Don't spend a lot of time, but make sure what you leave is an example of the way you do work. My "best" customers wanted the "best" work and paid the "best price"
 
bjp_ne_elec said:
What do you guys do when you pick up an account like this.
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The only thing I want to know on a commercial account is when and how they pay. If we can get the payments straight I can handle anything else.

Make sure that you are dealing with someone that's authorized to have the work done and is authorized to sign a work order to include the dollar amount of work they can authorize. The reason I say this is that in many cases even local managers are not authorized to have very much work done. If they need a purchase order number before the work starts make sure that is taken care of. Get set up as a vendor for the company to make sure of getting paid.

You will have to remove many ceiling tiles to see what up there and it may be ugly but there may also be spare circuits all over the place. See if you can do the first few small jobs at T&M and just bill them because this will give a good idea of what to charge on a larger bid job.
 
growler said:
The reason I say this is that in many cases even local managers are not authorized to have very much work done.
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I was repairing lights in a chain store, I was having a problem with the manger so I called the main office that dispatches us. Here is what they told me.

"The manager is not authorized to tie his shoes without permission"
 
I would have a sit down with the owner, or his representative and explain in brief what your walk around found and explain that there is just no way for you to know just what is there reliably, or whether it is completely suitable for his current needs.

I would not be overly pessimistic, but let him know that you expect most things won't be much of a problem, but it may require some extra "digging" time due to the lack of as-builts, and that now and then you may come up against an expensive problem.

He probably already knows all this, at least in general, and will probably appreciate your candor.

As you ID things, tag them so you don't have to go looking again down the road.
 
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For TI's, just hijack whatever doesn't appear to be in use to use for whatever it is they want added. That's rule #1. Matter of fact, I think that's the only rule. Don't worry about sorting out what's there if it looks like it was probably done by an electrician. You'll make yourself nuts. Just give them what they want by using most of what's already there whenever you can.
 
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