Quote???

[acowx]

HI all,

Went to quote a job the other day.

Job -

• Had a wood office put up the top of a garden.
• Supply and fit 6 sockets and a light
• Nearly 50M Run

Now, we went with SWA up the garden, mini CU, then sockets and light in trunking.

Someone quoted him £680, now the SWA is nearly £250 alone so how is he going to make money off this???

We quoted a lot more which I thought was only reasonable, looking at the job and the layout of house we were looking at 2 days to complete maybe running into 3 max.

Just wondering what your idea's on a price would be before I put mine down.

(Obviously quite difficult without seeing I understand)

Cheers
ASh

 

[telectrix]

what sizeSWA have you quoted for? i would give him 30A on 10mm. VD would just comply.

 

[Octopus]

Yesterday, for an outbuilding, I did 1 x light, 2 x 2g socket, 1 x CU, 30m of SWA, connections etc in 7 hours.

Maybe your timing is a bit high.

 

[Dave 85]

£250 for 50m SWA?

 

[PC Electrics]

50m of 10mm 3c swa is going to be about £200 or so.

Of course, we don't know the full spec, but I would price this up properly and then hand deliver the quote, making sure to tell the client that you have designed it properly in accordance with BS7671. Tell him the armour cable alone is £250. If he can recover vat, offer to let him buy it himself from here:
https://www.electriccableco.com/swa-electric-cable.php
so he can see how much it is.

If he knows you've designed it and priced it properly it should sow seeds of doubt about the eficacy of the other quote.

Alternatively, don't waste your time. Ring him up and tell him that the cost of the armour cable and 2 days labour is more than the other quote and so you're not going to waste your time quoting against someone who's clearly not going to do the job properly. Be tactful and suggest the other person may have made a mistake in his quote, in which case the client would be wise to snap up the offer. I've used this tactic a few times now and sometimes they come back to you!

BTW, last time I did a similar job instead of trunking on the inside I used conduit on the outside using the sides which were unseen.

 

[acowx]

HI there,

Thanks for all the feedback.

I did the calc and the cable does come in a 10mm.

For the timescale, this includes adding a network point for inet and telephone extension, this will be run up on conduit.

We did think of 2 day max but we always put on and extra half day to the client just encase of any unforeseen circumstances.

The SWA 10mm 50M I was looking at was screwfix (Electricfix) price of £220 ish, then added 10% comes to around £250 just under.

We did say in our response to him, all works will be completed to current regs and notified accordingly.

I just thought £680 was a little cheap, this was without data and phone though.

Ash

 

[Plonker 3]

Your price it what you can do it for competitively, don't try and compete as once you do they will attempt again to drop your price.

 

[acowx]

Cheers,

Yeh my price without the data and phone was still significantly above that of the other guy/girl, suppose you win some, you lose some..

Cheers

 

[Dave 85]

I'd use a 4 or 6mm. That's prolly why you lost the job. Over engineering gets you nowhere

 

[londonlec]

I'd use a 4 or 6mm. That's prolly why you lost the job. Over engineering gets you nowhere

Its a 50M run!!

 

[trev]

I'd use a 4 or 6mm. That's prolly why you lost the job. Over engineering gets you nowhere

He did say he had done the calcs mate.

 

[jase]

£30 per hour x 16 hours = 2 days labour =£480 + 50M 10mm SWA, £250 = £730, thats without all the cable and accesories that are going inside the office and SWA glands etc.

 

[PC Electrics]

If this cabin is to be used for an office, then some heating will be required. 2kW would be a minimum imo, adding 1kW for computing equipment and lighting gives 3kW. Over 50m a 4mm cable would have 2.9% volt drop. This is too much - we haven't yet taken into account the drop in the circuit cables. So 6mm will be required. If we take 4kW as being more reasonable (so a 3kW heater), then the vd over the swa will be 2.6% for 6mm. HHmmm! On the limit if you ask me, but it would save about £65 on the swa.

Last cabin I did had 2x 2kW panel heaters (c/w thermostats) and had 10mm for its 46m run.

 

[jase]

If this cabin is to be used for an office, then some heating will be required. 2kW would be a minimum imo, adding 1kW for computing equipment and lighting gives 3kW. Over 50m a 4mm cable would have 2.9% volt drop. This is too much - we haven't yet taken into account the drop in the circuit cables. So 6mm will be required. If we take 4kW as being more reasonable (so a 3kW heater), then the vd over the swa will be 2.6% for 6mm. HHmmm! On the limit if you ask me, but it would save about £65 on the swa.

Last cabin I did had 2x 2kW panel heaters (c/w thermostats) and had 10mm for its 46m run.

and did you charge more than £680?