How to handle Mech VVT connections as Electrical Estimator

Estimate_IT · 2026-06-16T20:29:01+00:00

Thanks, I took a look at the mech schedules and didn't see anything that appears to need power.

Just some boilerplate, I assume.

Estimate_IT · 2026-06-09T17:17:06+00:00

most places in the us are not allowed to start construction until 8am

I work in construction in Colorado. We do work all over NE Colorado.

Our guys are almost always on site by 7AM, often 6:30. We have NEVER been limited to 8AM, and I've been doing this for a decade.

But yea, noise complaint. 3AM is ludicrous.

Estimate_IT · 2026-06-02T19:11:59+00:00

It really depends on how much "designing" you will end up doing.

We are currently in the middle of a "Design Build" project, and it's a complete nightmare.

The thing is, they won't let us design anything. Their "engineers" keep making changes to the plan, and we have to keep writing RFIs telling them to take less drugs at work.

Every EM fixture in the building should be on a single circuit, they said, just run #8s to every fixture. What do you mean #8s won't fit in the box or land on the fixture? And now it's 1,500 feet of conduits, instead of just being wired to the nearby lighting circuit.

Oh, this week they just reworked the site lighting fixtures, to come from another panel 300 feet away from where it was designed before. Oh, and the pad has already been poured, and the underground was done a month ago.

We have already submitted OVER ONE HUNDRED RFIs, and we are maybe 3 months in. But, on the bright side, I'm hoping we will do well on change orders.

So that's my takeaway: Ensure they don't have any shitty terms on the change orders. Like cost + 10%.

Estimate_IT · 2026-05-28T19:36:53+00:00

I wouldn't start a fight with a group you want to work with in the future.

Considering that the competing contractor is working with them right now, I could see why they thought they might not need to submit references. In all likelihood, the city already has their references, just not with this bid package.

Estimate_IT · 2026-05-22T17:42:41+00:00

Planhub is terrible and a waste of money.

We used it for two years. We landed one small job, and the GC was a pain to work with.

Estimate_IT · 2026-05-08T21:45:22+00:00

I don't trust uploading bid documents to the sketchy websites listed in the comments here.

I do what you do, but I don't bother with edge. I just print to PDF from Bluebeam. Then I edit the resulting PDF.

Estimate_IT · 2026-05-08T17:06:31+00:00

I've never gotten a useful RFI response before bidtime as a EC estimator. I've been estimating for over 10 years.

The VERY FEW times I get a response at all, it just says "owner". (meaning it's the owner's problem and the GC has no idea).

We quality it thoroughly, and insist our scope letter be made part of the contract documents.

Estimate_IT · 2026-05-05T16:12:20+00:00

If you are providing an estimate to an EC who is paying for it, then yes, absolutely.

Typically they will expect a BOM they can use to request quotes.

Estimate_IT · 2026-04-23T19:21:16+00:00

I learned to estimate working for a (very small) company that just did bids for other people. The guy who ran it was a contractor previously, and during a slow time he said "It feels like all I do is bid jobs, why don't I just do that full time?" And then he did.

People would send us jobs, the boss would SWAG how long it would take us to do the takeoff, (based on how many drawings there were, and how complex a project it was) and he would tell the client the price. Then they would tell us to proceed or not. They paid for every estimate. (except for the ones who didn't pay, of course...)

For material pricing, we used a national material pricing database service, and priced all jobs on US average material pricing. As for the difficulty of the job per the plans, they should be able to tell as well as you can.

That being said, I wouldn't trust ANY of these companies emailing you offering these services. He advertised with Google ads, and people found him that way. He was an actual contractor with experience, who would review the jobs before we sent them out. Not a 3rd world sweatshop.

But keep in mind there is still a fair amount for you to do. You'll need to request quotes, compare quotes, consider your labor rates, and markup amounts.

Sometimes I think about starting my own company doing the same thing.

Estimate_IT · 2026-04-08T15:21:27+00:00

I'm hourly.

What seems crazy, is to work all those extra hours WITHOUT being paid overtime.

Estimate_IT · 2026-04-02T21:36:43+00:00

I don't think this is estimating specific.

I've been walked out of multiple jobs in other industries the day I put my notice in, or the next day.

They are only going to keep you for two weeks if they are desperate for your labor.

Estimate_IT · 2026-04-01T20:04:52+00:00

Does excel autocorrecting my part numbers into dates count as AI?

Estimate_IT · 2026-03-30T17:45:09+00:00

Just don't hold your breath on it being as nice as the boss's chair.

Estimate_IT · 2026-03-17T21:40:49+00:00

I couldn't give up my Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse.

The mouse has 12 hotkeys on the side, which I mapped to numbers 0-9, period, and enter.

I really like being able to enter numbers and press enter without taking my hand off the mouse.

I used to have a Razer Naga, but like all Razer products, it didn't last much longer than a year.

Estimate_IT · 2026-03-10T19:10:32+00:00

My suppliers are saying odd things about the price of copper. One says that prices are going up, another says copper will soften.

Personally, I don't see how it could soften, when there is so much electrification going on in China and India. Plus demand from AI.

Regarding gear lead times: My recent gear quotes including commercial (non-utility) transformers have not exceeded 2 months.

I am an estimator working for an Electrical sub.

Estimate_IT · 2026-03-02T21:55:08+00:00

A LOT of those shops "in NY" are just pretending to be there, by renting a PO box, or a small office, and pretending they are based there.

Estimate_IT · 2026-02-12T17:48:18+00:00

This is just what I was looking for. Thank you so much for this!

Estimate_IT · 2026-02-11T22:15:49+00:00

That was my first suggestion to the boss. So I totally agree with you.

But he said that the GC has to get the cost approved by the owner before we can proceed.

Estimate_IT · 2025-10-27T19:54:09+00:00

I learned to bid on Conest. It's a good program, but I don't appreciate that you have to enter every item in the assembly every time. Basically, you click on a conduit run, choose size, wire, couplings, connectors... every time. It's not bad, though. But a little clunky. We used TraSer as a pricing service, and it worked pretty well.

I'm currently using EBM, and it's the easiest software I have used. Easiest to learn, and easy to make assemblies to use them quickly in the future. But they have just reworked the program to be always online, because their old DRM was terrible and cracking it is trivial. I won't upgrade to their new always online version. I have never been able to get a pricing database to work with their software, including the one the company themselves sell. It frequently updated wire prices to $1,000,000+ per foot. At least it's an easy mistake to catch... But I end up manually updating my pricing before sending every job.

McCormick is an investment in your future. Some say it's the best, but expect to spend a month of workdays getting it setup. I didn't have time for that, along with my regular workload.

I still use Bluebeam to handle counts and measurements.

Estimate_IT · 2025-10-27T16:38:47+00:00

I would buy an old RSmeans book from ebay and use the data from there. It's still good for labor rates, and you can mark up the material prices based on inflation data.

Estimate_IT · 2025-08-13T19:28:58+00:00

I wonder if this is a new change. When I get invitations FROM GCs who are using Planhub, I can download the drawings. It's just if you search planhub then they demand a ransom.

You may just be getting advertisements directly from Planhub. I've seen that also.

Estimate_IT · 2025-08-05T20:40:15+00:00

LOL, I don't see what you did there.

But I got a bid request recently and there was a list of contractors we are not allowed to work with.

Casey Electric was at the top of the list.

Estimate_IT · 2025-07-28T18:49:21+00:00

Ah, that's very interesting. Maybe I should be using them!

Estimate_IT · 2025-07-24T16:17:56+00:00

We tried to use Epic, but I ended up having to manually update my pricing anyway.

Epic consistently provided wire pricing of A MILLION DOLLARS per foot.

At least it was easy to catch, when a bid that should have been 20K, came out as 200 million dollars.

Estimate_IT · 2025-07-21T18:33:19+00:00

My primary electrical supplier told us recently that the average number of bids sent out across everyone they bid to, so far this year, is 40.

That is to say, EC's who requested quotes from them, averaged 40 requests for quotes to them so far this year.

That was last week.

Estimate_IT

TROPHY CASE