bid drawings printer mail or self print - Electrician Talk - Professional Electrical Contractors Forum

mikeh · 01-19-2012, 09:22 PM

Let me start by saying i am a small contractor (no plotter (36" Printer)) i have a print shop that does black and white prints $2.50 a page.( this adds up with 20 to 30 sheet drawings).
Most g.c.'s send u electronic files for a bid.
do you guys print yourself, pay to print or ask the g.c. to overnight a set of drawings?

CoopElec · 01-19-2012, 10:32 PM

With the trend going paperless I am planning on going with 2 big monitors or a couple of small flat screens. Digital is the future, and with a service the prints are free to download. No more print table to lean on.

sparkie2010 · 01-20-2012, 12:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeh

Let me start by saying i am a small contractor (no plotter (36" Printer)) i have a print shop that does black and white prints $2.50 a page.( this adds up with 20 to 30 sheet drawings).
Most g.c.'s send u electronic files for a bid.
do you guys print yourself, pay to print or ask the g.c. to overnight a set of drawings?

Do your take off on your computer. Don't bother going to office max or getting a plotter.

mikeh · 01-20-2012, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sparkie2010

Do your take off on your computer. Don't bother going to office max or getting a plotter.

this may be a dumb question but how are you scaling in a computer screen?
do pdf readers have scaling tools?

sparkie2010 · 01-20-2012, 10:12 AM

Trade secret, no go to goggle and search vu360. It's a free download. You can scale the drawing and do your take off.

gptechelec · 01-20-2012, 10:16 AM

Everything is going paperless. If you are using paper plans yopu are diniosaur. Electronic takeoff is the wave of the future

MarkyMark · 01-20-2012, 04:44 PM

Electronic take-off is the way to go. Two large screens and a PDF mark-up program and you will never go back to paper print take-offs.

Just because I'm a bit old school, though, I do sometimes print out the plans on an 11 x 17 printer as well. It's cheap, and it helps me find what pages things are on quicker when I have to reference the architectural or plumbing/mechanical plans.

I actually do own a plotter, but I never print the plans out until it is a job I have under contract about to start. That's also a little way I have to make sure I never mix up bid prints with the permit prints.

Bulldog1 · 01-20-2012, 05:28 PM

I had a place like Kinkos blow up a set of plans that were emailed to me. I think it was 30 cent a page. We normally bid smaller projects and we receive an actual set of plans.