L/E

I've been approached by one of my contractors asking for the sq ft price on a church. 22000 sq ft. (10- 1000 ft classrooms and a 1200 ft sancuary, a pastor's office and parking lot lights). This is all just for budgeting purposes so I didn't want to spend too much time on it.

Anyone have an idea on an approximate sq ft rate?

rewire

throw out $10.00 sqft no such thing as budgeting purposes sounds like he wants to get a lowball price, then do a takeoff of the prints for what it will actually BID for.

L/E

I know this guy pretty well and he's trying to help me grow.

I came up w/ a rough estimate of 7.43sq/ft does that sound like anywhere in the ballpark?

robnj772

And how did you get that number?

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NolaTigaBait

There is no such thing as a flat square foot price.

mdfriday

That seems very low...I'd say $10.00-$12.50 / square foot is a good budgetary # depending on thier final fixture selections, dimming system, etc.

We do budgetary #s all the time...

ampman

single phase- three phase
600a service 1200a service
how many a/c s
cheap lighting /quality lighting
wiring method ?
time frame ? cu/ al
too many variables to make a reasonable sq. foot price

st0mps

just look at the blueprints and charge per-point and you can get a price like that also

MDShunk

I've only done two churches. I remember both prices, but I'm only going on memory on the square footages. One came in around 15 and the other in the high 30's per square ft.

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captkirk

How do you square foot electrical work...? Did I miss something in my career ?

Black4Truck

Only thing sq. ft. pricing works on is wall to wall carpet

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MDShunk

Unless you're doing tract homes or have a lot of historical data, you can't. All you can do is work your final invoices backwards, for curiosity's sake.

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-Marc, ABC, XYZ, PhD, 1-2-3

-Someday, I'll wear pajamas in the day time.

rewire

you call that a career

te12co2w

I looked in a really old (1988) means electrical cost data book. It said the electrical was 4.12 - 7.35/ sqft. Percent of total job was 7.3% - 10.8%. I've never done a church start to finish so I don't know if these #'s were ever any good or still apply now. Certainly the sqft price would be higher now, but I would not bid that way. Working up a price for initial budget planning might be different though.

mdfriday

Exacly. It is for BUDGETING purposes only and is not a hard proposal. I wouldnt even tell them you square-footed it.

Or, you could make assumptions, and price that way, then include those in a budgetary proposal.

120/208 1000A service with MDP and 5 200A MLO Panels .....$$$$$
75 Lighting - 2x4 3 lamp lay-ins .....$$$$$
Etc.

Just different ways of comming up with a number fast so you don't spend to much time on something that may or may not be a possible job.

BEAMEUP

Also, don't forget to throw a number in the budget for a rental of a man lift or two. Last church I did had 35' ceilings with alot of pendants. Are you budgeting for the P.A. system to. Alot of ?'s I would have to ask in order to give a ballpark sq price.

480sparky

How can you grow when you're asked to price something the wrong way?

So how much is a square foot of wire? A square foot of EMT? A square foot of luminaires?

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All responses based on the 2008 National Rat Code.

rewire

Thats not exactly how sqft pricing works. A 2000 sqft home cost $175,000.00 to build that would be $87.50 sqft to build if 10% of a new homes cost is in electric that woud be $8.75 sqft now take the average of several 2000sqft homes and it can give you a good base sqft price.

chiefestimator

As stated by many others, square foot pricing is only to be used as a very rough budget, particularly on churches. There are just to many variables. It is like asking how long is a piece of string. If you want to sign up for R.S. Means Costworks, you can get a range of square foot costs based on current historical data. The report can be fine tuned by zip code.

$10 is way to low. You can barely finish the shell for that price. Start adding systems like dimming, lighting control, audio, TV, data and security and that price can more than triple.

Be careful.

robnj772

I am still waiting for him to come back and tell us how he came up with this number

Seems like he flew the coup

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