Electrical Estimate Template

What goes on an electrical estimate

An electrical estimate has two jobs. It has to let a homeowner or GC compare you against two other electricians, and it has to be specific enough that nothing on the job becomes an argument at trim. The job-specs strip under the header handles the first. Service size, scope, finished area, the number of new circuits and who issues the permit are what customers line up side by side. The phases handle the second.

• Service and distribution: the meter base and mast or lateral, the panel, grounding and bonding, the changeover, and an allowance for what the old panel is hiding.
• Branch circuits and devices: each new circuit with its breaker and home run, then receptacles, GFCIs and switches as openings.
• Lighting, testing and permits: recessed lights, fixtures, fans, smoke and CO alarms, the permit and inspections, and labeling the panel.

Anything the customer might add, such as low-voltage drops or an EV charger circuit, goes in the optional-items table, priced but outside the total.

How to take off an electrical job

Most residential and light commercial electrical work is counted, not measured. Go through the plan room by room and count openings: every point that gets a device, a light or a fixture. Multiply each count by a labor unit, the hours per opening for rough-in and trim, taken from your own crews’ time records. The Device Takeoff sheet does the multiplication and counts box positions too, since recessed wafer lights and fans need no separate box. To check that each box is big enough for what goes in it, use the box fill calculator. Here is the completed example:

Wire comes from circuits. For each circuit group, the sheet multiplies the number of circuits by the average home-run length from the panel, adds the cable between openings, and adds a makeup allowance for loops and drops. The example’s twelve circuits need 554 feet of 14/2, 836 feet of 12/2 and 116 feet of 14/3 for three-way travelers and alarm interconnects: three, four and one 250-foot coils. Add 1.2 hours per home run and 22 hours for the service changeover, and the job is 85 labor hours, or six and a half days for a two-person crew. The hours per opening in the example are placeholders. Replace them with yours. On a long home run or a feeder, check the size with the voltage drop calculator before you count footage, and where circuits run in conduit instead of cable, the conduit fill calculator sizes the raceway.

Pricing the job line by line

Price the service as lump sums from your own history. Price the rest the way you counted it: per circuit and per opening. Build each unit price from cost on the Unit Price Builder: material, plus labor hours at your fully loaded rate, plus consumables, then overhead, then profit as a margin on price rather than a markup. In the example, a receptacle opening costs $68.90 to install at a $72 loaded labor rate and sells for $97.27 at 20% overhead and a 15% margin. A 15% margin is a 17.6% markup, so the two numbers are not interchangeable. Copper wire is the line most likely to move between bid and purchase; the copper wire price trend shows how far it has moved this year.

The completed example is a 1958 ranch in Columbus, Ohio. The overhead service goes from 100A to 200A, and the 1,050 sq ft basement gets finished. Service and distribution come to $5,385, branch circuits and devices to $6,991, and lighting, testing and the permit to $3,814. That is $16,190 in total. The basement portion, $10,805, works out to about $146 per opening all-in, or about $10.30 per finished square foot. There is no tax line because the contractor pays tax on materials and includes it in the prices. The 30% deposit is $4,857, due on acceptance to order the panel and service equipment.

Allowances: the old wiring and the fixtures

A service change exposes the house’s existing wiring. Double-tapped breakers, damaged cable, ungrounded circuits and splices outside a box surface when the old panel comes out, and the inspector sees them too. Nobody can price that before the cover is off, so write it into the estimate: a stated number of hours included in the price, billed at actual hours with photos, with unused hours credited back. The example carries four hours at $115. Anything bigger, such as a circuit that has to be rerun, goes on a change order signed before the work is done, or on a T&M ticket if the customer agreed to time and material.

Fixtures are the other argument. Say who supplies them. In the example the recessed lights are contractor-supplied and priced per light, while the vanity light and bar pendants are owner-supplied and priced as labor only. When the job is done, bill the balance on an invoice that references the estimate number and lists any approved changes.

Estimate, quote or proposal?

For service upgrades, remodels and basement finishes sold to a homeowner, this estimate is the whole sale: a price, the terms and a signature. On commercial work bid to a GC against drawings and specs, build your cost on the construction estimate worksheet and send a bid proposal with inclusions, exclusions and alternates instead. Our page for electrical contractors covers how that commercial work runs in BuildWorkPro, from the bid through pay applications.

Common mistakes on electrical estimates

• Pricing a basement by the square foot. A wet bar, a bathroom and 24 recessed lights change the count, and the count drives the hours.
• Pricing a panel change without looking inside the old panel. An allowance costs less than the argument.
• Counting openings but not home runs. Twelve circuits averaging 45 feet is 540 feet of cable before the first device.
• Leaving fixtures vague. “Install fixtures” without saying who buys them is two different prices.
• Leaving out the permit and inspection time. Rough-in has to pass before drywall, and the trip back for the final is labor.