new house wiring

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shelco

Senior Member
Guys (and girls)
I have been requested by a good customer to wire his new home. I have done mostly industrial and commercial work so i have little experience in pricing resi work. Is there a basic rule of thumb for pricing this? If i estimate it the same as ind. work it will be way out of whack.
I do have some men that are experienced in doing resi work so that is not an issue.
i realize that this is a wide open question but any help would be appreciated. Any sources that may help?
Shelco

[ June 02, 2005, 07:45 AM: Message edited by: shelco ]
 
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jeff43222

Senior Member
Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Re: new house wiring

Someone once posted that his rule of thumb is to bid the electric at 4-7% of the price of the new house, and add a few % for extras.

I've never bid a new house, just remodel jobs, and I can say that that 4-7% range is also the ballpark I generally operate in. I just did a full kitchen remodel plus a 100->200A service upgrade with outside disconnect, and my gross revenue on the job was about 8.5% of what the homeowner paid the GC. After I got the job, the GC showed me the bid from another EC; it was about 9% of the total.
 
mdshunk

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
Re: new house wiring

If you bid the way I bid, and you're not famaliar with resi work, you'll be working for free. Would the guy (since he's a friend) let you do it on T&M?
 
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shelco

Senior Member
Re: new house wiring

I don't really want to do this but he is a good customer. If i do it t&m and it gets too expensive i run the risk of ticking him off so i would rather do it for no profit and keep the cash flow of his business comming in. The price of doing business I guess.
 
growler

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
Re: new house wiring

From reading your post I would assume that this is a large custom house with lots of homeowner involvement. If the Architect has provided a set of detailed drawing you might want to get a bid from a residential contractor.Some of these houses eat up the labor and will not be as cheap as you would think. Getting an outside bid will give you a good starting point to base your price. If someone is dumb enough to bid cheap, then let them have it. Most of the contractors that do these all time know what they are getting into and price accordingly. One of my friends in another state gave up commercial to do custom, high dollar homes. The money that is spent on houses these days is nothing to sneeze at. A million bucks doesn't buy what it did. My point is, if you look at the prices of the compitition you may find this not to be a money looser.
 
electricmanscott

electricmanscott

Senior Member
Location
Boston, MA
Re: new house wiring

Originally posted by shelco:
I don't really want to do this but he is a good customer. If i do it t&m and it gets too expensive i run the risk of ticking him off so i would rather do it for no profit and keep the cash flow of his business comming in. The price of doing business I guess.
Click to expand...
This is interesting. Not my way of thinking but I wonder if it is worth it. I sense a train wreck in the making. I would never operate my business on this type of principle. Suppose this guy drops you as his electrician for whatever reason, you just wired his house for free.

[ June 02, 2005, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: electricmanscott ]
 
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shelco

Senior Member
Re: new house wiring

electricmanscott

You are correct and I don't normally do biz like this either. however in this case the amount of money he pays me every year. (for the last 6 years) I would be willing to take the chance. Very loyal customer. I am sipmly repaying the loyalty.
Also getting a resi contractor to give me a price quote is a good idea. I would be willing to pay him for his info just to be ethical and not waste his time. I know I wouldn't like to be used as a pricing service. Even though it happens all the time.

Thanks

[ June 03, 2005, 07:23 AM: Message edited by: shelco ]
 
aelectricalman

aelectricalman

Senior Member
Location
KY
Re: new house wiring

I have not heard a straight forward answer yet. I charge roughly $2.50-$3.00 per square ft. Giving a limit on recess cans purchased and installed per 1000 ft. Any luxuries I charge for, ie.. Switched plugs, extra garage outlets or circuits, Ironing board circuit, extra phone and cable. Good luck
 
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apauling

Senior Member
Re: new house wiring

okay, time to pull out the pointy eared mask.

okay, it's not a mask.

But....long inhale.....

this job will be with you for as long as you work with this guy. it might be worse than flirting with you mother-in-law. well, maybe worse, maybe not. Whatever goes wrong with any appliance, switch, light bulb, motion detector, including AFCI problems, will always come back to you. He might tell you that he understands, but there will always be some question. Some doubt. This is his home, not a project.

You can't bid it competitively. You have to tell him that and why. Everything has to be top grade, more kitchen circuits, no split bath outlets, no fans on afci circuits. A whole list of problems that a homeowner might get with a competitive bid, non-specified material and design job are not going to be okay here. You will lose your other work if anything goes wrong.

this is just not the same as working for another professional, or contractor, or company. it is like getting in bed with someone, it changes everything. maybe good, maybe not.

it's not your fault that you are stuck here, as he stepped over the line. but, if you are going to do this, you have to talk to him about this and that you can't do the minimums and why you can't give a cpmpetitive bid.

sorry for the cold water.

paul
 
growler

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
Re: new house wiring

I thought about this problem some more and the only reason I can come up with for not putting the job out for bids, is this customer must want you to bill the company for service ( tax write off). If this is the deal, I have done similar things. I have billed commercial accounts for residential work. If this is a perk that a business owner wants to give himself, it's up to him to pay taxes on services received. I allways show location of job and work performed on the invoice. I could be wrong in my reasoning, but there has to be some reason to hire an industrial contractor to wire a house. Around here they try to go the other way around. You can run Romex to those machines can't you and nail those boxes to the collumns. If people would learn what a broad field that this electrical profession is. You can't, in a cost effective manner, do everything from log cabins to airplanes.
 
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