I use as a starting point my hourly rate, and by experience know how much time it takes to do something. I used to give homeowners breaks on inspection fees (i.e. - $350 instead of $500), as it is the mortgage lenders requiring the inspections usually. After losing money on a few I just...
This thread is right up my alley, too. As a PE I run a one-man engineering firm doing consulting engineering, and I network with other engineers to broaden the skill set available, but the ongoing challenges are the same as CPclarks skid shop biz. Always be selling, keep on top of insurance (I...
For quick but robust answers on simpler beam loading problems, I have found www.soft4structures.com to be a useful online tool. You do have to pay a modest subscription fee for the full version, but I have analyzed indeterminate beams and trusses successfully with it.
For large quantities of...