Hello everyone, this will be my first post here on ECN. I am looking for some good estimating books. Any and all info is welcome.

Thanks

Hello

Hello waterdog, welcome to the forum. Look at MIke Holts book on estimating electrical wiring.

Thanks macmikeman

Why do you want to estimate, the jobs, just look at what the other guy is charging, why waste all that time looking things up, after a few jobs, where you loose money, just add a few bucks, and see id your still loosing, if your still loosing, just keep increasing the next job until your check book balances.

If your serious about doing things the right way, try this book for some basic starting points, on estimating. Craftsmans Books on Estimating. If you like the Craftman Books, you can move on to more complex estimating systems from there.

Also, keep track of your time and materials on completed jobs. Nothing will be more accurate than your own numbers.

Dave

That is the real secret to pricing jobs.

Let us know how your doing, with locating the books

That's gold, Dave.
It's also where a computer really comes in handy, rather than digging through screeds of paper records.
Not that it isn't a silly idea to have a paper back-up, we all know what computers can be like.

What I find best for keeping track of (just about anything) is something called Filemaker. For most of you folks I suspect Microsoft Access is pretty similar to it.

I use a completely different method and system for estimating, but I really like this setup and wished it were available when I started out: http://www.electrimate.com/

For $50 it’s a good way to see how it all comes together, has some labor units that you can start tweaking, and is a neat way to break it all down.

The whole program is basically excel, and has a free demo that works up to 1 1/2" pipe sizes.

I use RS Means, MS Excel and and personal past performance. RS Means is not bad product but it has its limitations. It is targeted fo general contractors and the like. For me anyways, their labor times and material costs are for the most part on the money, even for remote Alaska if you apply the correct mulipliers. The problem I have with it is some areas are lacking in the line items and others they go overboard. RS Means covers all aspect of construction so it is not as definitive as you would expect from a electrican specific software.

The beauty of RS Means is that the data is compiled from nationwide sampling. That is why I like to use it for the labor time. If for some reason a particuar task is taking longer then the national average, I know I have a problem that needs addressing. It is an excellent reference to see how your labor times add up to industry averages.

By combining both RS Means and Excel, I can get a good estimate. In the same workbook, everything is broken down automatically by catagory for cost tracking during the project so I can see what is working and what is not.

I prefer Excel over Access. In my mind it is simpler to use and more people have it on their computer then Access if you share data electronically. If you really know how to use Excel, you can customize it where works best for you. Excel is one powerful program for crunching numbers.

I went to our city library today, to check out some of the books mentioned, well they got quite a selection with many copies of each, but not one was available, all were checked out. Tommorrow I am going to one of the local Community College and check their selection out.

Thanks for the help.

Has anybody here used or using Vision Infosoft software for estimating?

I started with Means for about 2 years your expeance is the best way of estimating.
If you want to get a good program cheek out Conest we have been on it for 9 years.
Like any thing you have to get it the way you want it but it is easy to work with.You still have to know your costs to enter them it to the program.

Larry

We use EBM.

It's nice.