Seems we have lost some bids of late. And after some follow upsI have some questions.
1.Does most people bid by square ft and if so does that enclude hvac/water pump etc
2.How do you handle the garage and other areas
Seems of the bids we lost after following up they paid more than our bid because others were not encluding hvac cable phone.Just wandering whats the norm for other areas..Thanks

Garages are part of my square foot bids. they are just as much work or more than any bedroom

Square foot pricing has absolutely no place in electrical bidding. If you think about it, square foot pricing might be related to a field such as concrete slabs, carpet, tile or other fields involved directly with areas.
If you must, you could do your take-off of material, labor, sub-contracts [rental fees, permits,, etc.] and overhead. Add your profit. Then divide by the square footage and get the stupid, real estate slime number and use that.
But going backwards and multiplying the square feet by some mythical number isn't gonna have any relation to reality. How much does a Fiat cost per pound?

As for the phone. HVAC, etc., you wil have to look at the plans, specs and contract. What is included?
~Peter

We do some work by the square foot and it works good for us. The way we do it is as follows:

$X.XX per heated square foot.
PLUS
$XXXX for the service and panel work
$XXX for a sub panel
$XX per recessed can
$XX additional per outlet in baseboard
Install of heavy 2 story fixtures is additional.

If we were doing phones and cable, the sq ft cost would be higher.

Seems like in my area, if you don't do the job by the square foot, you don't get the job, then you gotta do it around $ 1.85/ sq. ft. then you MIGHT get the job. Don't seem to be an option if you want work where I live. I've done houses at $ 1.85 sq. ft., not hardly taking time to eat, shopping for the best deals on material, and still not hardly making a profit. Made maybe medium wages, but that's about all. And at least one of the building contractors I've done work for, won't let you include the garage in the square footage. I agree that sometimes and most of the time, the garage has more in it than a typical bedroom. Your electrical panel, garage door openers, most of the time my experience has been uneven dirt to work on because the garage has not been leveled yet for the concrete when I get in there, so I have to try to work off of a ten foot ladder on uneven dirt and try to run my homeruns, etc. Don't seem fair somehow, but seems that's the only way to get their work. I'd rather do old work and service changes most of the time. I don't really know how the contractors in my area make much money, unless they pay their help under $ 10/hr.
on some of the new houses. I guess I'm missing something somewhere. Anyway, my input
Hope it helps.. Steve

Take a look at this thread over at the other forum- http://www.mikeholt.com/codeforum/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000356

I can't see why anybody would want to work for these guys.

-Hal

sparkync,

That is exactly why we've moved from the 50/50 residential/commercial that we were doing 8 years ago to today's 5/95.

We can't make a profit doing residential. The builders don't seem to have any problems finding electricians who will do the job for less than our cost.

The few homes we do anymore are custom built and usually we get the job because of previous dealings with the owner.
GJ

[This message has been edited by golf junkie (edited 10-21-2004).]