I'm bidding a job at a horse barn that will require me to run EMT. I do mostly resi. work with romex and was wondering how most of you would bid such a job. I normally bid my resi. work by the sq.ft. Is there such a way of bidding a pipe job? Or should I count all of the openings, add up how many lengths of pipe, etc.?
HELP!!!

The only way I would do it would be whatever time you think you will need plus materials. Since you don't normally do this type of work it might be a crapshoot.

I'm going to have to go to my code book for this but I thought barns had a pvc requirement due to acidity... (In Canada anyways)

I'll come back to this one.

-Greg

Yes Smok, let me know. The plans that were drawn up showed it to be run in EMT. I did'nt notice anything or may have missed it in the code book.

we rewired barns and have done a few new construction of barns and milking Parlors. we have always used either UF cable or PVC pipe due to the acidity of the manure locations where the animals could get at the boxes wires etc. we used the PVC for protection. i'm in the states by the way.

i also used to work at a farm as a laborer in highschool and noticed that most exposed pipe (unless whiewashed) were rusted and corroded.

Ithink we can use nmw cable also in canada for barns

Personally I have never bid a job by square foot. Since your in unfamiliar territory I would figure out this job with a take off of materials. Then figure your pipe bending skills and labor.
I bid in units. Which means I bid a receptacle to include a box, ring, recept, 20' of cable and all the little parts + the labor to install it. You may not have the time to figure that all out before bid day so here is a thought.

Home Depot gives away a CD that has a little estimating package included with a catalog. I have found it to be fairly accurate on average labor units for any given item. You may spend a night figuring your job out using it but hey it's free and you can use it in the future.

With regard to what the others have said about what is required in the barn and how it is wired. In situations like this I often cover myself by having a line item on my bid that says "Bid per drawings and notes dated x/x/xx sheets E-1. E-2" etc. If things change you have an out.

I can't find a rule in my Ontario Code book regarding the use of conduit in that location. But, as mentioned above due to the acidity and damp area its in I think common sense would prevail.

The only 'for sure' I did find was regarding buildings housing Livestock or Poultry was 22-204 and refers to Appendix B.

More or less states that:

-no alumn wiring can be used.

-shall be of the type listed in Table 19 for wet locations.

-where nonmetallic sheathed cable is used it shall be of the NMW or NMWU type & must be protected against damage by rodents where it is less than 300mm above a surface where rodents may be present.

Thats all I could make out of it... but if it were me I'd pvc it.

-Greg

I did look this up and found something under (547 Agricultural Buildings) it does not say that EMT is not permitted. But it does refer to PVC. However since this is a horse barn and not a milk barn (not much washing down). Just a lot of lights and a hand full of recpticals. All overhead not buried in the ground. I'm going to call the inspector on this one since it will have exposed pipe, I think it would look nicer if it were all nice and straight. PVC tends to sag and not look so good.

I did a horse barn a few years back and did it all in EMT and commpresion fittings.

Thanks Joey, I believe thats the route I'm going to take. How many GFI circuits did you provide, or was it even needed. My understanding is that the animal activist push on this pretty hard. Basically due to the fact that the animals could somehow chew into the wires. I personally don't see it since the wire is protected via the pipe.

Joey how did you bid that job? This barn will have right at 25 stalls. Lights and recpt.at each stall, lights down the ally way, lights and recept. in the tack rooms, and a restroom.

The barn I did was 8 stalls, a wash room, storage room, and a tack room. It also had a huge indoor riding ring and a hay storage area. Power requirment was not a lot. Keep attention to where the recepts go as the horses will bite the things off the walls if they can reach them from the stalls. Also in the aisle as you don't want the horses bumping into the boxes and getting hurt. The job I di the customer thought more of the horses than they did of their kids.
I bid it on a how long I thought it would take and stock list like any other job.
The plus side to a job like this is if the customer does not pay you can do what the Godfather did.

EMT 8 TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE THAN ROMEX:

250 FT. OF 14-2 ROMEX $ 25.00

250 FT OF EMT CONDUIT= $ 75.00
FITTINGS AND DEVICES= $ 35.00
J-BOXES= $ 20.00
500 FEET OF WIRE= $ 70.00
TOTAL= $ 200.00

YOU WOULD NORMALLY RUN A FEW CIRCUITS INSIDE THE PIPE, BUT THIS GIVES YOU A WORST CASE SCENARIO. I WOULD DOUBLE THE LABOR AND TAKE MTLS 8 TIMES MORE THAN RESIDENTIAL. GOOD LUCK.