malachi constant
Senior Member
- Location
- Minneapolis
I'm an engineer. Been asked to help put together a ten-year plan for a client who manages multiple K-12 facilities. As part of the plan I need to do a rough cost estimate.
The fire alarm and egress lighting systems in some of the buildings are very old an in need of replacing soon.
For fire alarm, using the Means catalog and making reasonable guesses as to quantity of smokes, strobes, duct smokes, etc I get data that matches up well with th "$1/SF" rule of thumb our office uses for fire alarm replacement.
For exit signs and egress lighting, I again make reasonable guesses as to quantity of exit signs and bug eyes, and am getting something close to $0.80/SF for swapping these out. At first blush that doesn't seem right to me, that whole-building exits and egress replacement would cost almost as much as whole-building fire alarm replacement. Upon further reflection there are probably more exits and bug eyes than there are smokes and strobes, plus now we would add in egress lighting at the exterior (which would be new wires and boxes as few existing installations include exterior egress lighting).
Another way to ask the question is what is the unit cost (mat+lab+markups) to swap out an old exit sign or an old bug eye egress light?
Anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks!!
The fire alarm and egress lighting systems in some of the buildings are very old an in need of replacing soon.
For fire alarm, using the Means catalog and making reasonable guesses as to quantity of smokes, strobes, duct smokes, etc I get data that matches up well with th "$1/SF" rule of thumb our office uses for fire alarm replacement.
For exit signs and egress lighting, I again make reasonable guesses as to quantity of exit signs and bug eyes, and am getting something close to $0.80/SF for swapping these out. At first blush that doesn't seem right to me, that whole-building exits and egress replacement would cost almost as much as whole-building fire alarm replacement. Upon further reflection there are probably more exits and bug eyes than there are smokes and strobes, plus now we would add in egress lighting at the exterior (which would be new wires and boxes as few existing installations include exterior egress lighting).
Another way to ask the question is what is the unit cost (mat+lab+markups) to swap out an old exit sign or an old bug eye egress light?
Anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks!!