Electical Contractor

This article is for all the junior and associate estimators out there whose estimating clocks have run out. Your time is up. Addendum 7 isn’t coming, and that bid extension is not going to happen.

I’m not a huge fan of estimating water treatment plants (WTPs). On one hand, they are typically refined, well-engineered and highly detailed.

I’ve waited to write about paperless estimating until now. I’ve been estimating with digital drawings and estimating software for many years, but I didn’t want to write this until I was 100 percent paperless and working entirely “in-screen,” as one software company calls it.

As the construction industry is starting to breathe again, I’m getting calls from small contractors asking if I think they should hire a full-time estimator. It’s a great question, and I’m glad they are thinking ahead, but there is no simple answer.

Although I never recommend it, estimators are often forced to work on more than one project at a time. This is especially true in today’s highly competitive and light-on-opportunities market. It is also very common with prebid estimates, which sometimes share the same bid date.

There’s some really positive energy brewing in the construction industry, and I’m seeing a lot of good bid opportunities throughout the country.

Electrical estimators are often placed in an almost impossible position. We are given raw schematics of large, complex buildings from which we are expected to estimate the cost of the many intricate electrical and signal installations they contain.

The estimation of a residential project should never be taken casually because they can be just as complex and design-intensive as any commercial one. So don’t just assume you are simply taking off another “rope job.”

It looks like 2010 might just be the jump start we have all been waiting for; per McGraw-Hill Construction’s “Outlook 2010 Executive Conference” industry analysts are forecasting an 11 percent increase in overall U.S. construction starts, mostly in housing and public works projects.