Walk-throughs, bids, change orders, submittals, phone calls. Each page below takes one problem electrical contractors keep running into: what it looks like, what it takes from you, and why it won't go away.
Shop headache 1 of 8
At a lot of electrical shops, the estimate is the last job of the day. Whether the owner still does the estimating or there's an estimator on staff, the walk-through happens on site and the write-up waits for a free evening. The customer waits with it.
Shop headache 2 of 8
If you've gone looking for an electrical change order template, you already know the form isn't the hard part. Getting it written while the job is moving is. So extra circuits, moved fixtures and added devices get installed, and the paperwork never catches up.
Shop headache 3 of 8
Plenty of electrical contractors finish a job, send the last invoice and still can't say whether it made money. Electrical job costing happens weeks later or not at all, and by then the crew is several jobs down the road.
Shop headache 4 of 8
The quote went out. The customer said thanks. Then nothing, and the follow-up never happened, because the person who'd make that call was back on a job site the next morning. Electrical quote follow-up tends to lose to field work.
Shop headache 5 of 8
Bid invites keep coming from GCs, and every one needs an electrical takeoff before anyone can price it. Your estimator can only count so many devices off so many sheets in a day. So good bids get passed over, and the ones you take end up rushed.
Shop headache 6 of 8
On commercial electrical work, the paperwork can wear out a project manager faster than the job does. Electrical submittals, RFIs and closeout documents all need writing, checking and chasing, and they land on the same person who's supposed to be running the job.
Read more: Submittals, RFIs and closeout paperwork Book a call
Shop headache 7 of 8
A lot of calls to an electrical shop aren't emergencies. They're a homeowner who wants a few more circuits in the garage, a builder with a new house to wire, a property manager with a list. Miss them while you're working, and some of them book the next electrician instead.
Shop headache 8 of 8
In many electrical shops, one person really knows how to price the work. Maybe it's the owner, maybe a longtime estimator. Others can walk a job, but every number goes through that one person, and so does every bid.
Read more: Estimating know-how in one person's head Book a call
That's common. Bring the one that cost you the most this month, and we'll start there.
