Understanding Labor Units

Understanding Labor Units

When you do an electrical estimate, two of the major cost components of the job you will need to determine include material/equipment and labor. The labor component is where the estimate is most likely to go wrong, and where errors can do the greatest damage to the project.

To estimate labor requirements, you start with standard labor-unit guides that tell you how many labor hours it should take to do a certain task under “typical” job conditions (for example, run 100 ft of trade size 1 EMT). Many factors can increase job difficulty, so you must examine the actual conditions of the job you are estimating and adjust the labor hours accordingly. Some labor variables are specific to the site (location, security access, customer procedures, and so forth), whereas some are specific to the crew selection (Harry works at a faster pace than average, Tim works at a slower pace than average).

Experience can help you adjust labor units more accurately, but do not let experience give you a false sense of confidence; do not use it “instead of” the labor-units method.

To drive home that point, consider the following labor variables: working height, the location of stairs, the distance from the parking area, temperature considerations (extreme heat or cold), crowding factors (how many other trades there are), shift work, repetitive task issues, the extent of ladder and scaffold use, the distance from your home base, the availability of adequate labor and material, as well as electric power.

Experience can be personal (belonging to you or people you know) or organizational (belonging to the company). Both can help, but only if you do not rely too heavily on them. Let’s look briefly at each one:

  • Personal experience provides a “feel” for what it takes to do a job. Keep in mind that one’s memory has a way of changing “the facts” over time. It follows from this that you should use personal experience as a way to check your estimated labor requirements, not as a way to determine them.
  • Organizational experience, for a contracting company, exists in the records of past jobs. If they are similar to the one you are estimating, you can carry over much of the information to the new job.

The approach of using labor units takes more time than trying to guess how long it will take to do the job, but doing so reduces the likelihood of errors and oversights. Just one error can turn a profit-promising job into a money-losing job.

Over the next few newsletters, we'll explore Labor Units in more depth: how they are expressed, what to include or not to include, how to develop your own Labor Units, and what's important to know about your competitors.

The above content is extracted from Mike Holt's Electrical Estimating Program.

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Mike Holt is an author, businessman, educator, speaker, publisher and National Electrical Code? expert. He has written hundreds of electrical training books and articles, founded three successful businesses, and has taught thousands of electrical code seminars across the US and internationally. His company, Mike Holt Enterprises, has been serving the electrical industry for over 40 years, creating and publishing books, DVDs, online training and curriculum support for electrical trainers, students, organizations, and electrical professionals. 

Mike has devoted his career to studying and understanding the National Electrical Code and finding the easiest, most direct way to share that knowledge with others. He has taught over 1,000 classes on over 40 different electrical-related subjects to tens of thousands of students. His knowledge of the subject matter, coupled with his dynamic and animated teaching style, has made him sought after from companies like Generac, IAEI, IBEW, ICBO, NECA, and Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Boeing, Motorola, and AT&T. He is a contributing Editor for Electrical Construction and Maintenance Magazine (EC&M) and formerly Construction Editor to Electrical Design and Installation Magazine (EDI). His articles have been seen in CEE NewsElectrical Contractor (EC) International Association of Electrical Inspectors (IAEI News), The Electrical Distributor (TED) and Power Quality Magazine (PQ).

Robert Silva

Electrical Project Manager for Randall Electrical in the Space Coast.

3 年

I agree with with that

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Robert Mirabile

AEC PA office 570 241 6400 INT Office 844-797-JOBS ext 2

3 年

In my experience proper estimating of man hours is essential. Too often I see bid s with undermanned hours to lower the cost to try and win the bid . As pop would teach me. “Build the job in your head” then put it on paper a nd see

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