Whenever I hear "square foot" pricing, I think stupidity.
Oh, that's pleasant. Thanks.
Actually, since all contractors come within a certain margin with their pricing, an average square foot number is actually derived.
No one said it was the preferred or ultimate method.
All I said was that it was a good way to check yourself after you did an item by item estimate, to double check that you didn't price yourself out of the acceptable range.
A lot of people do it. It's a good self check tool, which to me seems more like intelligence, than stupidity.
I understand your point about T&M reality outweighing a generic sq ft number. But you also need to consider the environment where it's being applied.
I was a foreman/superintendent for large commercial projects for years. 15 story medical office buildings, hospitals, nursing homes, 18 screen movie theaters, etc. In that environment, the difference in values of various materials and equipment, along with the wide varience in labor logistics, make it not only impossible to arrive at some sq ft average, but it would stupid to do so. As you said.
But I'm talking about a house here. If you go to price a housing development, with a few models, it's not very hard to arrive at a sq ft number since your talking about a pretty standardized layout of the usual stuff..plastic boxes, rolls of romex, and a couple of days hammering staples.
Of course this excludes any oddities or special requests by homeowners. But those can easily be added in.
I know a lot of contractors who do exactly what I said...A detailed itemized estimate. box by box, wire by wire, hour by hour. But then after, there's nothing stupid about double checking your price against the average sq ft price for house wiring in your area.
If you know the average price for house wiring in your area is $2.50/ft', but the price you're about to give worked out to $5/ft', when there's nothing unusual in the house, you better figure you did something wrong.
I don't really see how double checking yourself that way could be considered 'stupid'. The people I know that do it, are actually pretty intelligent and successful.
[This message has been edited by MONOLITH (edited 10-23-2004).]
