ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Business Related Discussion first house to wire

Be careful with customer provided fixtures. They love the home depot specials. You might be building that junky fixture for half an hour before you discover it's really really hard to get installed.

I like to do T & M for customer provided.

Sid, good luck!!! I'm at the point where I'm waiting to trim a house just as you mentioned. The studs are really hard to drill and to nail boxes to. Another thing to keep in mind is if anything is going to be relocated such as the A/C, water heaters,kitchen items, additional rooms etc.

DKLDRF wher @ in PA?

denny, just south of Quakertown.




[This message has been edited by Dnkldorf (edited 01-19-2005).]

Unless you are Superman and your buddy is Spiderman you will not do the job in 4 man-days(32 hours). National construction estimator says 80 hours journeyman labor to wire a typical 1600 sq.ft. house. Old wood has nails hidden in it and will split when you nail it. My guess is 100 hours, rough and finish. At $50 per hour, that is $5000. Keep track of your hours and tell us when you are done. I like to have owner furnish and pay for all fixtures separately and I do not go to the job finish until they have all fixtures and can lite trims, etc. on site.

Don't let them scare you. Even if you don't make a lot of money at it, at least learn from it. As you're working, make detailed notes of the time you're spending. That way you'll know your time on the next bid. Break it down into as many pieces as you can.

Keep track of all your materials including drill bits, which the guys think you'll be burning through. When it's all done, add it up & see how you did. Some jobs work out better than others, but almost all of them beat sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

Do your best work regardless of the profit outlook & you'll be asked to bid on another one. Your ace-in-the-hole is a change order.

If they ask you to change anything be prepared to say "That's an upgrade from the plan, I'll work it up for you for a Change Order", or something to that effect. Forget about what seems fair, this is your only chance to make up for under-bidding.

Dave

I am not trying to scare you...just be realistic. Even at your price you can make over $30 per hour... and learn a lot ...that is the key ingredient as mentioned above. Go for it.

I would bid it at $5 per sq ft. This includes the service but no recesed lights. It does include basic telephone and cable TV. 1 each per bedroom and 1 each in living rm as well as 1 each in kitchen.
I also would not tell the customer that you bid by the sq ft. This way if they add something you can just give them a cost for every item.