House Estimating

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aline said:
My neighbors building a custom home with 4,500 sq. foot finished. He's acting as his own contractor and hiring subs for the work. He knows I don't wire new homes. I was curious and asked him how much the electrcal was. He said the electrician was wiring it for $1.65 per sq. ft. He said that included about 15 can lights and the electrical service.
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I really don't know what the prices are in Utah but go back and ask if this $1.65 a sq. ft. isn't labor only with all materials firnished by the GC. I wouldn't be so sure that the service is included. The reason I say this is that $1.65 is about right to hire a rough & trim crew with few extras. He may even be pulling the permit himself. There are those here that will rough in for that amount but they don't have a license, they don't furnish materials and the check is made out to cash or a private individual and cashed at the liquor store.

In every area you will find some people working for nothing but you will also find some people making money.
 
aline said:
Here in Utah electricians must be fools.

I've only wired a few new homes and have yet to figure out how anyone around here is making money on them.

A guy I've know for years was building a new home and really wanted me to wire it for him. It was a little over 2,000 sq. foot on the main level with about 1,800 sq. foot of unifinished basement. I gave him what I thought was a very low price of $6,500. He told me all the other bids were around $4,500. This was about 2 years ago.

Since I've known the guy for years I decided I would show him my break down of costs and profit. He looked at it and said; if you took your overhead and profit out of the bid you would be competetive. :(

People wiring these must be crazy.


My neighbors building a custom home with 4,500 sq. foot finished. He's acting as his own contractor and hiring subs for the work. He knows I don't wire new homes. I was curious and asked him how much the electrcal was. He said the electrician was wiring it for $1.65 per sq. ft. He said that included about 15 can lights and the electrical service.

Today, against my better judgment, I went out to give a bid on a basement wiring job. I don't like bidding on basement wire jobs either. I try to concentrate on service and repair work.

My price was $2,600.

The guy that was out before me was a little over $900.
Is he nuts? Why even bother?

She had another guy coming out tommorrow to give her another bid.

Below is what the job consisted of:

15 Duplex Receptacles
8 Can Lights
2 Smoke Detectors
1 Smoke/CO Detector
1 Ceiling Fan
2 Surface Mount Customer Supplied Lights
3 Single Pole Dimmer Switches
3 Single Pole Switches
2 TV Jacks
2 Phone Jacks
1 AFCI Circuit For Bedroom 15 amp
1 General Purpose Circuit 15 amp

Housing out here seems to be booming. I constantly here about how everyone's so busy they can't keep up. I've had GCs call wanting me to wire houses for them because the electrician they usually use can't keep up. When I give them my price they soon change their mind. If all these guys are so busy why don't they raise their prices?

I don't know why some electricians around here bother being in business. They sure aren't doing it for the money. They must be crazy!

I'd really like to see how they come up with these insanely low prices.
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We have the same thing happening in my area. I have not been able to get to wire a new house for 26 years unless it has been for a friend ( I only wired about 6 in that time.) (6 friends ha ha ha )
In residential I only do service upgrades and some creative skilled renovations and recent wiring repairs. My competetors have a rough time getting their STREET PICKED HELPERS to do a service upgrade properly or drill holes inside the walls from the basement without coming out in the middle of the harwood floor in the dining room etc.
You should be doing fine by doing work which requires skills. That is exactly what I do and nothing else. Any type of work which seems simple enough to be done by a homeowner or handimem I leave and do not bid on it.

It only takes 4 days to train a street picked helper to learn how to rough in a new home. All he has to know is grade 3 math and follow a set of numbers and lines already layed out on a sketch. The owner (contractor) sets these helpers up and then just comes in to do the panel terminations and a few other details and that is it.
I have seen all that in the past 26 years. It works out to be about $12/man/hour to wire a new home. I think it might be $14 now.
Nobody knows that the workers are not licensed. At inspection time they all disapear except the contractor stays around to fool the inspector (who is not an electrician either) and that is the end.
My work also involves doing all types of repairs and alterations after the house is sold. It takes about 1 to 2 years for a home owner to begin to notice all the inefficiencies. A common one is to install a larger panel so that the rec. room wiring can be accomplished. Others are 3 way sw that don't work properly, smoke alarms which never functioned, too many outlets in a circuit, problems with split receptacles, problems when opening a junction box the marrets fall off, it goes on and on.
 
Well I came up with $2,270 for the job. I bid jobs for what I think is a fair and competitive price. If I do not get the job I do not worry about it. I am not going to work for immigrant wages. No money in this area wiring new homes. Ride by any new develpoment and all you see wiring is Pedro and Jose and the boys. Probably no liscensed electrician on site the majority of time.
 
I can't stress enough how important it is to use a quality estimating program. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I didn't know exactly what my costs are in a project. Guesstimating is for amateurs and people who aren't serious about making as much money as you can. The philosophy of "You win some, you lose some" drives me crazy. Don't do a project if you don't know your exact costs and are confident that you are going to make a good profit. I know it hurts to spend money but an estimating program is no different from your job site tools. Spend the money on quality tools and you'll come out on top. I highly recommend the estimating program that I use. You can find it by clicking here. They offer a 30 day fully functional trial.
 
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