Free Price Estimating Tools and References

[Champchops]

Hey All,

I recently moved from being a design engineer over to the owner's side. I now frequently must budget jobs for feasibility. Does anybody have any recommendations for free software or references to acquire this data. Typically I'm responsible for pricing the division 21-28 items. Currently I use the following.

2016 means guide and 2015 ENR guide.
Online pricing data
Budgets from past projects although these rarely break things out line by line.
For equipment, I get price quotes direct from vendors I work with.

While I've become decent at pricing fire protection, plumbing, and HVAC, I struggle with electrical, low voltage, fire alarm, etc.

If anybody could recommend some inexpensive software, I could probably get my superiors to pony up but nothing too expensive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Drazen]

I don't know what software would do what you cannot get with RSMEANS.

They have electrical book, like they have mechanical one. There is National Contractor books set that works the same, but RSMEANS looks much better to me.