ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Business Related Discussion my first bid on a house new construction

Call the state. Here, Mass. We must provide a current certificate of insurance, with job completion rider on it before a permit is issued along with a license(with picture).The option of the owner to sign a waiver acknowledging you don't have ins. is available.But, would you like to take that chance? Additionaly, you are not releived of accountability, This only informs the owner that you are not insured.

Proud to say, but I must feed my family, and therefore if I see a substantial job (not a light fix change out)in progress, I WILL call to check the permit status.

Too bad, Take food from me and we will butt heads.
I pay good money for my insurance,license and equipment. Steal and you will be prosecuted.

PS: 1 J-lic 1 aprentice/job. Master can have any amount employed,but each job is a 1 to 1. J- man cannot work with j-man unless both employed by the same master.
So self employed J-man can only have 1 apprentice, when they get licensed, fire them get another helper, or your masters.

When I do new work (which is almost never at this point) I make sure every device is light gfci etc. is listed. Any thing above is a charge anything below a credit. Doing things to code is a min. if they don't ask for recessed lights the get none. 1 switched receptacle in bedrooms. And if your to high either keep trying or move on. In my opinion builders are not were its at. They want it now, they want it cheap and they want to take 120+ days to pay for it. Recently in our area some are having a tough time finding electricians, wonder why.

Good luck!

Ob

Electricians as an entire trade should come up with some standard pricing policy. I understand fully the importance of an open market, and commercialism. However the guys who don't understand by doing the "work" cheap. For what ever reason.Maybe after hours moonlighting, maybe a handyman who can wire, plumb, paint and roof etc. I'm not calling for unionizing, but some kind of pricing outline. There is absolutely no reason for any e.c. to do jobs with this margin of profit.(if you can call it that)
I would be 100% behind them making some kind of buisness course required to
open a business.Or even just to do business. Definetely licensing, and insurance should be mandatory state to state.Thats my 2 more cents worth....

=standard pricing policy.=
This must be regional. In no way could it cover national/international lines.
If somthing costs on average $100. We should all charge $100 +-. This crap of 1 charging $100 and the other Charging $10--!?
C'mon!! Someone made and someone just kept busy (thats important too). But I agree If we all charge what it's worth, we'ld all be better off.
We're all in this together. Lets get together.
We will all be better off.
This is why I am a proponent of licensing and insureing.

And for those "side work guys/gals". Charge the going rates.
and get insured, why loose your house etc. for a $200 grab.

to make the uniform priceing that will be kinda tough call to set up like this each corner have slightly diffrence on priceing policy but overall once you get the high side and low side and average it out that you can used for general baseline to use it.

sometime have to use the common sense depending what ya call for it.

Merci, Marc

Good quote here:

the insurance company gave in to my demand "after that agent check with other EC's and they reply the same aswer as i say".

Thank you Marc.
You illustrate the point nicely.

This subject is one of the hardest things a new guy can try to get a handle on. I don't charge by square foot. Tried it - been there - done that. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Square foot pricing is a coin toss. We made profit on about 60% of them and lost money on the other 40% and wound up breaking even over a 2 year period. When my bean counter (wifey) and I looked at residential stuff we decided we would just have to spend the time to do a separate estimate for every job we got(of which there were plenty). The problem is the time it takes. It usually takes a day or so to figure out what the builder wants and then they usually pull out the "extras" that need further work on an estimate.

When we added all the overhead of operating the business we could never come up with an accurate estimate with Square Foot pricing so that's why we now take the time to give a VERY detailed estimate and binding contract for each contract.

As most electricians just want to get in there and get the job done (much like pilots flying aeroplanes) it should be simple. But it isn't.

We bid on jobs on typical 2000 square foot houses that have varied from $6000.00 to $15,000.00 --- it all depends on what the customer/builder wants. There is just no simple formula.