thekoolcody

How did you guys learn how to do this? I have a few jobs set up in goshen, and Monsey. What is the best way to estimate? My old boss had a "cheat sheet", to base prices on but I am clueless.

MDShunk

Doller value of time to do the work plus doller value of material plus overhead plus profit. Simple as that

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InPhase277

Dollar

bobelectric

Time & Material + Mark-up & Overhead & Profit.The secret is what the boys are charging for Time.

MDShunk

Crazy that I was typing that on my phone, and the "predictive texting" made dollar say doller every time.

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thekoolcody

How do you figure out the mark up? If materials are $100 for example do I mark it up to $150 or $200?

captkirk

there is another cheat sheet for that. Marc has one for you. The mark up depends on the price of the item

Russell1200

What MD Shunk said is true, but probably not terribly helpful to you.

What you need to do is get a handle on how much this work is going to cost you. There is no magic bullit to deriving a price until you know this. What MD is describing is the basic formula for determining your cost.

Mike Holt has a nice book on estimating as wll as Edward J. Tyler.

thekoolcody

Thanks guys. I got to go to the firehouse to play firefighter.

Magnettica

It's not easy as I quickly found out. You might not get the price you want for something right away, like a service for instance. And you will learn what the value is of what you're selling by people saying things like that "that's too much." So you will lower prices, start getting more work at lower prices, an then you raise them until you find out where people start saying "that's too much" again. That's been my experience so far.

New customers are far more hesitant to pay the big prices, but referrals will seemingly pay anything because they already know you do nice work with decent prices, least that's been my experience. For the new customers it might be best to give them cheap prices over the phone if that's what they're asking for and then try to re-adjust that price after getting there and actually looking at the conditions you'll be working in. You need to sell yourself more than anything else and build a trust right out of the gate with people.

This advise might not be for everyone, but this is what I have learned the past 2 months.

lectric_hand6855

John

Naw, just a spammer posting.

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macmikeman

They film that show about a quarter mile from where I go to the beach sometimes. I have never seen more than a half minute of it on tv however before I grab the channel changer.

user5941

Things will always take longer than you think.A good estimating program will help.A big part of my career was spent running jobs so I had a working understanding of the time aspect of various jobs. Charge what your market will bare.

chiefestimator

Here are a few items many new estimators leave out.

Incidental or miscellaneous materials - Things like tape, wirenuts, rags, soap, etc. For residential or small commercial work, these material are worth about 2-1/2% of the material cost.

Expendable Tools - Bits, blades, ladders, etc. Add 2% to your labor cost for this item.

Direct Job Expenses - For smaller contractors, this is usually just permit cost.