Determining how much of the National Electrical Code (NEC) estimators should know depends on several factors, including how much they initially knew when they became estimators, the type of work they are bidding, who they are working for, the completeness of the bid documents, and their goals as estimators.


A little history


I knew a bit about the Code when I became an estimator. I had spent seven years at a small wholesale house and two years as a purchasing agent at a very large electrical contractor. Without even thinking about it, I picked up some Code knowledge from the contractors and manufacturers I worked with. In the process of taking and filling purchase orders, I absorbed simple facts such as ground-fault interrupter requirements (which became Code while I was working at the wholesale house) and conduit fitting and enclosure requirements. While employed by the large electrical contractor, I learned a lot about high voltage and classified locations.


When I became an estimator, I didn’t need to know much about the NEC because the engineers we worked with turned out complete documents with all of the required calculations done. They spelled out everything I needed to know on the plans or in the specifications. However, it wasn’t long until I started seeing plans that were less than complete. I had to start learning the Code just to bid the projects we were getting. At first, it was simple things, such as conduit fill and grounding requirements. I did not have my own Code book, so I started making copies of the tables I needed for such items as wire ampacity. A few years later, I went to work for a company that did design/build remodel and restoration work. I really had to learn more about the Code for that job.


Back to the present


Since then, things in the hard bid world have changed a lot. Everyone I talk to has observed the degradation of electrical engineering, and bidding documents continue to get worse. Every time I think bidding document quality has hit bottom, I am proven wrong. As electrical estimators, it now falls on us to check the drawings for completeness and Code compliance. Here are some examples:


• The feeder schedule indicates a wire size of 500 MCM. Notes on the floor plan indicate a wire size of 600 MCM for the same feeder. Which is right?


• There are no feeders shown for the heating, ventilating and air conditioning loads. Your only clue is the circuit breakers in the panel schedules. What do you do?


• The specifications require the use of hospital-grade wiring methods, but the plans do not show those methods. Now what?


The following was a particularly dangerous situation where not all costs were included in an estimate. At the time I ran across this, I had not studied the requirements for fire pumps, because I had always trusted the engineer to get the requirements on the plans. However, based on what I had seen on previous projects, I suspected this one was wrong. First, I called a couple of people for help and got conflicting opinions. Finally, I broke down and looked it up in the Code book myself and found that the design was incorrect in a way that left out a large number of costs.


So what do we do when we find these problems? The proper way to handle them is to generate a request for information (RFI) and send your questions to the engineer through the proper channels. Unfortunately, today’s short bid schedules usually do not allow for the opportunity to get these RFIs answered in time for the bid. As a result, I have adopted the following strategy. First, send in the RFI; it may get answered. Next, correct the mistakes as the Code requires. Last, qualify your proposal to be based on the corrections you have made. Sometimes the mistakes are so big that the intent of the bid documents is not clear. In such a case, if the engineer is accessible, I will call him or her for the answer. Whether I get a response or not, the proposal will have to be qualified as needed to protect your company or client.


I acknowledge that the above strategies won’t work with all of the possible scenarios that can happen because of incomplete engineering. Whatever you do, you have to protect yourself, because the bid documents require you to bid “a complete and operable project, complying with the intent of the bid documents and complying with the requirements of the NEC” or something like that.


So, I take my opening statement back. Determining how much of the NEC estimators should know doesn’t depend on anything. Every electrical estimator, working in any position, should know the NEC and know it well.