How much to charge for electrical inspection.

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patricknola said:
I'm curious what do most electrical contractors charge to do a pre sale home inspection. Is it per square foot?
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Are you an electrician or a home inspector? Usually home inspectors take care of all of it but if I were to get paid it would depend on what type or write up they'd want. You can spend more time writing up the report if you don't have some templates set up.

I would guess at how many hours you would need to do it and put your labor price to it and then some....No materials makes my labor cost go up.
 
Please add your occupation to your profile. Also if you are a licensed contractor you should make sure that your insurance covers doing inspections.
 
A complete home inspection is generally in the $500 range so inspecting just the electrical system is likely to be a fraction of that number, or you would not have many takers. $500 is not even four hours of journeyman electrician time in many areas of the country. Just driving to and from the site and donning and doffing your arc flash suit so you can open up the panels is probably two hours by itself.
 
Joe.B said:
More information needed to answer your question.
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Sure you need more information. Who requested the inspection and for what purpose? Is this an old house that had the power cut off for the last 10 years? Is it obvious there has been a lot of unpermitted work done? Storm or fire damage? possible vandalism?

If they want an electrician to inspect the electrical system there a good chance they need the power turned on and that can take a lot more than just an inspection.

It may be they want more of an estimate of cost to get things up to par if they purchase the property.

As the man says get more information.
 
I've done a few and, as far as I can remember, they were for realtors. Well, there was one that a realtor requested but the seller was paying. I learned very quick that it's not just a service call price. The realtors usually want you to do something cheap to get the house sold, then tell you they will get you to fix any problems found. But most times you never hear anything else. If you list what needs fixing/replacing, they will take your info and hire either a handyman or a cheap (so called) electrician. So you have to make it worth your time to do the inspection and write up a report.

Also, you have to be very careful how you word things so the report is not taken as any kind of warranty. I usually just check things like the panels, switches, receptacles, grounding system, etc. I state that any wiring, or anything not visible, can't be verified as to it's condition. I just state what I checked and that it was working at the time of inspection. Add disclaimer that says, "no warranty is stated or implied".

I will list items that are not working, or unsafe wiring, incorrect breaker size, lights, etc. I do not state what the fix would be, just that it needs attention. Any more info requested, such as breaker size etc., would only be answered if they want me to do the repair.
 
patricknola said:
I'm curious what do most electrical contractors charge to do a pre sale home inspection. Is it per square foot?
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I worked for a GC/home inspector.

He did it as a fixed rate regardless of house size. Larger ones usually just have more bedrooms. Most of the time is in the utility closet, bathrooms, and kitchen. This doesn’t change much in terms of square footage. The worst ones have complicated HVAC, pools, or outbuildings.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
Are you an electrician or a home inspector? Usually home inspectors take care of all of it but if I were to get paid it would depend on what type or write up they'd want. You can spend more time writing up the report if you don't have some templates set up.

I would guess at how many hours you would need to do it and put your labor price to it and then some....No materials makes my labor cost go up.
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I'm just starting as a supervising electrician for a company that was using subs for there electrical calls. We do a general inspection for free. I do thermal imaging. Mainly checking for proper grounding and code violations that could be fixed. I work mostly in Chicago and you would be surprised what I find. I'm pricey, I have an industry price book that we go by but I'm very thorough. The idea in that is let's say I charge $500 to install a new AFCI breaker. The old one didn't trip for me. If I put one in and all is well I did okay. If I had to to do an hour or 2 of trouble shooting but I got it. Not so great. If I find that they crossed the neutrals up in boxes everywhere then I have to charge another flat rate. We are really focused on high quality of work and making people feel comfortable with our technical ability to solve problems. Sometimes you lose on a job because you just didn't get it right fair for us and to our customers. I'm not a fan of home inspectors. I think it's to much to know for anyone to be really good at. I have had bad experiences but that being said I'm sure there are some great ones too
 
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