Design builds are favorite jobs. If its not a DB, I can almost always sell some VE to bring projects into budget. The ability to design is a great asset for any EC to have.
I always work with a PE and use one of two respected and very professional engineering firms to reviews and seals my plans, and to somehow insinuate that this is somehow unethical is a bit insulting to me and them.
Another way of looking at this is, yes the customer does get what they pay for, but that also means they do not pay 4 times the market price for a fixture package the Architect specified as part of some good ole boy deal with a distributor to lock in their package in exchange for doing the budgets and lighting calcs. I wonder how many trips to Hawaii some of those fixture packages are worth anyways?
A few words of advice to the OP, forget the Asbuilts, do a full load calc and general design, but do NOT give them a copy of your plans until you have a contract or they may put them out to bid after you did all the work, and DO pay to have your plans reviewed and sealed, it is worth the money. Once you have a deal, then do the full design.
Oh and the tools you need:
AutoCAD
Excel
NEC 2005
Copy of Local ordinances and design criteria.
