Project consumables

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Alwayslearningelec

Senior Member
Location
NJ
Occupation
Estimator
What are some examples of things you consider “consumables” on a large electrical project?
Also do you add costs for small
Tools?
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
If by consumable you mean items you expense as opposed to items that are on your material take off I will give you some examples of things we do not put on our bills of material but are actually used.

Fasteners
Mtw wire #18 to #10 in normal colors
Certain multiconductor cables
Wire markers, name plates, and other labels
Din rail and terminal accessories but not terminals themselves
Adhesives
Cleaning supplies
Crimp on terminal for #10 and smaller conductors
wire duct
Small amounts of strut

But this is for a panel shop. I would think wire would be a big thing to not be expensing if you're running it 500 ft at a time as opposed to 2 or 3 ft.

We will also sometimes fudge a little bit if the engineer knows that something that normally would go on the bill of material is available but is not in inventory just so it gets used up. But if the engineer doesn't know something is available it might well get put on the bill of material.

I have known other places that build panels that expense a lot more stuff because they think it's more cost effective. There's a point you reach where figuring out The parts you need cost more than those parts.

Incidentally, it's not like we don't account for the cost of these kinds of items, they're just not on the bill of material.

Normally the only time a tool gets put on the bill of material is if it is something we would probably never use again.
 
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