Have done a search and didn't see what I was looking for (probably need to learn how to search properly). When you're doing your pre-wire estimates, how long are you estimating each run to be to each location?

2000 sq ft house
3000 sq ft house
4000 sq ft house

Looking at the plans doesn't really help because after sparky and the tin basher are through that 50' run might need to 80' to avoid their stuff. In the end we're going to charge for actual cable used but want to make sure estimates are "safe".

Thanks!

Well a 4k ranch is quite different than a 4k 3 story

100' per run. This should also give you enough on your spools to make the patch cable from the wall plate and patch panels at the rack.

i create a wire schedule in excel for every pull. for each room, i calculate the distance by:

1. assuming the path is along walls (i.e. not a straight line from A to B)
2. adding 20' for each floor jump
3. adding 50% to the that number

then i use that room distance to calculate length for every pull to that room.

+1


If you charge for what you actually use, this will usually result in an acceptable quote price and a pleasing discount at the end.

This is the right way to do things.

How you charge is up to you but if you charge for actual cable used you are accepting the excess wire (overhead) on your dime and limiting your potential profit.

We charge for the cable ran not just what was used. I figure the labor to calculate every cable at the rack is going to cost the customer a lot more than running extra and cutting it off.

And how much are you charging to put together the spreadsheet?

My last company would charge $80 per extra run on a prewire. That was a few years ago, so I would call it $120 per run now, assuming we're all talking about prewires. Tell the customer how much it will cost to fish the wire afterwards...

Another installer told me a story once where he dropped a box of screws on the ground (flew allover the construction site) and started to pick them up. His boss went nuts and said "i am not paying you $25 an hour to pick up a $3 box of screws".

Gotta be expensive to generate that spreadsheet.

It's like the customer that wants us to vacuum the floor after we're done. I tell them I have no problem vacuuming at $65 p/h and they usually tell me they'll take care of it. :)



No doubt!

Took me about an hour to fill in the template for an 8K sf space (around 75 jacks.) Once I got the job, I more than recouped that as part of the design fee.

Also, playing up the approach is reassuring to clients, and it certainly helps to avoid the pitfalls of over or under estimating.

Would love to see that template!! You measured out via the house plans every room and then filled in on the template every cable length for an 8000 sq ft house in an hour?? Is that a guy hour or a female hour? (my wife's "I'll be 10 min" is of course 40 min)

I've run the gammut on this...

When I first started, I did a spreadsheet for each job and caclulated every wire run by taking measurments from the scale plans.  From there I added each and every connector & wall plate and then estimated labor.  This would take hours for an average job.

After doing this for a couple years I got busier and better at estimating and created a "pre-wire worksheet" in Excel.  This has a "project details" sheet where I can enter square footage, how many levels and then just key in how many of each run I need (Voice, Data, TV, Surround, Dist Audio, Antenna, Intercom, Camera, Sat Dish, Vac Inlet).

The spreadsheet has all my materials and costs and then calculates pricing with separate sheets showing details of each type of jack with materials, tax and labor broken out.  On each of these separate sheets I can add in any extras like structured wiring cans, etc.

There's also a summary sheet that is good enough to print out and provide as a quick estimate.

Downside to the spreadsheet is that material pricing has to be manually updated as it changes, but I can create a fairly accurate pre-wire estimate for any size job in about 5 minutes.

Lately I've started doing more of this directly in QuickBooks using "group" items.  With this approach you create an item group that contains all the materials required for a specific cable run (cable, wall plate, keystone, ave labor, etc.).  The benefit of this is that it's all done in QB so the material pricing is already accurate, and you can quickly print out an estimate. 

You can even have the group item include a percentage of a part.  An example would be a 24 port patch panel for data drops.  Each one factors in 4.16% of the cost of the 24-port patch panel.

This is also a problem because it can't account for the cost of that 25th port, so there's still some downsides and manual review required to catch stuff like this.

After doing this for 5 years, I've come to find that the following guide lines work well and are at least enough to give a prospective new customer a quick ball park figure for pre-wire.  Check it against your numbers and see if it comes close:

$1.00 per sq ft - Basic pre-wire for voice, data & TV
$1.50 per sq ft - Advanced pre-wire for voice, data, TV and audio/video
$2.00 per sq ft - Comprehensive pre-wire for voice, data, TV, audio/video, intercom, cameras and some conduit.

You can't really create an estimate or proposal based on the sq ft model, but it's a good start and something the builder or customer can easily understand.

[Link: dl.dropbox.com]

I use OpenOffice, so if macro described at bottom doesn't work you'll need to use this program.

This is the actual version from the 8k sf project. Remember, I already have the spreadsheet with rooms. All I do is copy/paste that to a new worksheet, type in the jack/end point letter for the first room and kick off the macro.


Divide each page of the plans into 4 quadrants or whatever you need and write the distance from Head End to center of each one. That makes the "measurements" very fast.