NECA Manual of Labor Units question

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Rpick89

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I've been given copies of a couple pages from the NECA manual by an electrician looking to justify an estimate he provided to me. I just need some clarification on what the numbers mean and what the units are.

For instance, for 4" Sch 40 PVC conduit the numbers under the Normal/Difficult/Very Difficult columns are 25.0, 31.2, and 37.5 respectively. Are those the number of hrs./unit?

And the unit "C", is that 100 ft. or something else?

The specific situation I have is the installation of 4 Sch 40 conduits in a 110 ft. long trench (2 - 2", and 2 - 4"). The electrician is quoting a labor time of 72 hours, which seems high to me. Excavation and backfill not included.

Thanks
 
raider1

raider1

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I am re-opening this thread after a PM with the OPer has clarified that he is an engineer that specializes in waster water treatment plants and works with electrical design.

Chris Jensen
 
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fridaymean

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Illinois
You read it correctly.

C = 100. The hours listed in the column are per the unit listed.

As far as if that is high or low, the only one that will know is the guy that has to write the pay checks, and pay the material invoices. He won't know until the job is done. It might take 100 hours, it might take 50.

I am assuming he gave it his best estimate. With out seeing the job, I cannot speculate as to if his estimate is high or low.
 
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TxShocker

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Texas
Rpick89 said:
I just need some clarification on what the numbers mean and what the units are.

For instance, for 4" Sch 40 PVC conduit the numbers under the Normal/Difficult/Very Difficult columns are 25.0, 31.2, and 37.5 respectively. Are those the number of hrs./unit?
Click to expand...

In my NECA manual like you said you have a column for Normal, Difficult and Very difficult. Each column has the labor per 100' (C)

Rpick89 said:
And the unit "C", is that 100 ft. or something else?
Click to expand...

In the manual "C" is for per 100' FT

Rpick89 said:
The specific situation I have is the installation of 4 Sch 40 conduits in a 110 ft. long trench (2 - 2", and 2 - 4"). The electrician is quoting a labor time of 72 hours, which seems high to me. Excavation and backfill not included.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Like fridaymean stated, without seeing the job we can not tell you if the quote is to high or not. How long have you been an engineer?
 
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CopperTone

Senior Member
Location
MetroWest, MA
that NECA labor units manual runs on the higher end of labor unit manuals but is an industry standard book. The labor units are supossed to include everything associated with that job. It doesn't reflect only how long it should take to do the job. It includes , set up, break down, ordering material, picking up material, office work, paperwork, etc, etc. if the EC added more into that for all those things then it is high.
That labor unit should be multiplied by the hourly rate (which includes labor burden, over head and profit) plus the cost of materials(times mark up)

Sounds like this is a change or Add to an exisiting job in which case an EC will charge you full price for any changes with no sharpening of the pencil like he did on the bid.

Looks like according to the units you provided the EC went on the low end
2 x 27.5 = 55 man hours for the 2 - 4" conduits @ 110ft
not sure what the labor units ar for 2" pvc but that leaves 17 man hours for that.

I have a durand & associates labor units manual and it says on the high column that for 2 -4" and 2 - 2" pvc conduits 110ft with 10 couplings each with 20 spacers should be 29 man hours. You didn't mention any 90's or 45's - any in there?

oh, and it should take 2 guys less than a day to do this if the material was all on site beforehand.
 
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dmagyar

dmagyar

Senior Member
Location
Rocklin, Ca.
Change order/just speculating

Change order/just speculating

It isn't clear to me what is going on? It reads like you've requested a quotation on some new work that cropped up.

What any of those guideline hours you've quoted don't address is lost time for out of sequence work, difficult job conditions or a general contractor that hasn't bothered to organize the job sufficiently, plus a multitude of other items that can affect his end costs and efficiency, which also includes the time it takes for the change order to be approved.

P.S. Welcome to the forum.
 
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