Every Electrical Contractor should have sample estimates and guides for training in not only material take off and pricing but also the productive efficiency of the total business.
An excel spread sheet with material pricing and associated labour time taken for each unit of material helps provide a beginning for new estimators and experienced estimators wanting to get back to understanding the basics in the functions and art in becoming a successful electrical estimator.
Each organization has different efficiency levels depending on the makeup and experience of the human resource on the particular functional outcome at the time of execution; the basic labour units will need to be updated regularly through a feedback loop from current projects as the make up the human resource changes over time in organizations. The efficiency level depends on the number of workers having the required skill level for each particular task.
Electrical contracting embraces a large variety of projects from domestic through commercial, industrial and mining to complex electrical systems, and it takes years of diversified training and experience to enable one to become familiar with all costs involved.
Electrical contractors do not want to spend money for research and time studies, and the electrical estimator has to copy labour units given or just guess as best he can. A proven set of labour units covering different installation conditions from an experience electrical estimator with over thirty years experience in the electrical industry goes a long way to providing an electrical estimator with practical tools to get an accurate estimate saving time and money and a better understanding of the electrical estimating process.
Electrical estimating is a hard and strenuous business, and every sizable, complicated job of electrical estimating is a “brain teaser” and a “red eye producer.” Electrical estimating is an interesting career if a person is able to follow the job all the way through and know the final actual costs compared with those estimated.
