My hat's off to all of you commercial electricians out there. I have done residential for so long that when I get a chance to bid a home town job in the commercial reahlm that I get awful frustrated.
Here's the scenerio:
3618 sq ft store
174 customer supplied fixtures (that's 16 different styles)
1- 3 phase panel
door buzzer system
time switch
36 receptacles (5 of which are isolated bonding)
3 phase electric heater hook up 30 amp
3 phase var. air hook up 30 amp
water heater hook up 1 phase 20 amp
3 conduits cut in concrete floor (approx 7 feet)
Plug mold recessed at 10 fixtures
additional conduit cut in concrete and floor mounted box for recpt.
Some receptacles will need cut in mill work
I am trying to come up with a good quote but I think I am really needing some help...any one want to help me out...feel free
sounds like a mall store to me. good luck. I dont think there is a good way to estimate one. even harder to try and make any money if you do get it. I did a few mall stores when i first started and all where confusing and there is usually alot of items that are not fully shown on the drawings but refrenced in the owner specs. make sure if you do price it to get the fixture types and go to the manf website and get all the mounting and hardware specs it will make a world of difference when you are trying to labor the installs- thats about all the good advice I have - sorry
My hat's off to all of you commercial electricians out there. I have done residential for so long that when I get a chance to bid a home town job in the commercial reahlm that I get awful frustrated.
That's kind of how I feel about residential work, my hat's off to you guys. I haven't done any in so long that I'm sure I'd lose money if I did it for the going rate.
I think 1st you just need to decide if you want to do this or not (sounds like you do). Next, it's a matter of digesting the job one step at a time. I use a spreadsheet when doing this. You can assign labor to each task the way estimating programs do it, or you can try to figure out what you can get done each day. If you are hungry and looking for work, you gravitate to thinking you can accomplish more in a day than you can (and vise-versa if you are busy). I prefer the time per task method. The pitfall here is you don't get the right time and are either too high or low.
Might I suggest you look at that Craftsman estimating program that is discussed on this site often. I think it's around $50. You can get a feel for the time from their software and make sure your material prices are current. I played around with it about 10 years ago and was impressed for the money.
Trust yourself. Don't have a predetermined price in your mind, or you will work your estimate to that price.
