Residential Calculations 16

[jerseyshore]

I do a lot of residential projects and find myself approaching the calculations differently for nearly every job. For small jobs, not usually a big deal, but for the bigger ones it turns into a challenge.

I start off a bigger project thinking okay, I'm going to be organized this time and label everything neatly so that I can track loads, design posts, etc. But it's 2 days later and I am saving calcs as "Back left header kitchen long window". 40 members later and it's a mish-mosh of beams and joists and rafters that become a nightmare when I have to go back and change something.

So I'm starting a big brand new house next week and wanted to get some ideas how people normally approach these types of large projects. Hoping I can make my own system to save as much time on these PITA jobs as possible. Appreciate it.

 

[XR250]

For me, I would do a simple one car for $800. Would take 45 minutes total most likely as I do my own drafting.

 

[DoubleStud]

More automation means more profit. Not lower your price even more.

 

[YoungGunner]

In regards to the comments about a garage for $300 - it's not us, believe me. It's just the nature of the market we are in. We would be laughed at if a simple garage cost more than that. Lot of engineers here willing to do it for even less.

 

[Aesur]

@YoungGunner - that is good to hear you are not one of the ones driving it down. When I get requests like that I just tell them good luck. They usually get something but it has lots of issues during construction. It seems the garages we have been seeing have been simple 2 car on the face, but with all the architectural flair which makes it complicated, hence higher fees required.

 

[Eng16080]

What YoungGunner describes is similar to a system that I'm currently working on. I even took it to the extreme in that I'm taking a year or so off from normal engineering work to work on this. At my last job, there were a lot of tasks that could be made significantly more efficient, except there was never time to improve the process (gotta be billable, etc.). Aside from project communication, which might be difficult to optimize, for most design tasks, I think it should easily be possible for me to achieve a 2x efficiency increase on the low end with 10x being possible for some things. (I would bet that YoungGunner has seen this sort of productivity increase, maybe higher, although that's none of my business.)

In terms of project fees, I always try to charge what the market will bear, unless that would result in a fee so low that the project isn't worth the liability, in which case I would avoid that project. If I get every project I give a price on, then I figure I'm not charging enough for the work. As a general policy, I usually won't stamp anything for less than $1,000. Now, if I'm actually able to improve my workflow to the point that I'm twice as efficient, I'm not going to charge less for a given project. If anything, I might charge more considering that I can now get the project done more quickly, which is presumably a greater value to the client. I would never do a garage for $300, unless I was starving. That's just insane.

 

[Aesur]

What is crazy to me is, it's more expensive to trim a tree or have the weeds in my back yard removed than a homeowner wants to pay for the design of a garage.

 

[jerseyshore]

Last week someone called me to look at their house because they were having an issue with the floor and some sheetrock cracks. So I said it'll be $550 just for the site visit, then if you need a letter or drawing maybe more we'll see.

The homeowner goes "$550?! That's like the cost of a home inspection! I thought you were going to say something like $70." I said uh yeah I know how much home inspections cost, but I'm a licensed engineer, that's quite the step up. I told him you're lucky I said $550 because most people aren't going to answer the phone for less than $1k.

I didn't care about the guy complaining about the price, but the funniest part was $70. Who even comes up with that number? That's like 3 things at a grocery store these days. I'm not sure $70 even covers gas and the tolls.
-----
But anyway, back to my OP, I love my spreadsheets, but 95% of my beam designs for residential are in Forte. Very easy to use, can link loads, change things quickly. It's free too. I couldn't imagine having giant spreadsheets like described above. I cannot imagine the amount of time spent for some of those. I want as many things done on computer programs as possible. I just want to refine my labeling and numbering system to speed up the design and drafting processes.

 

[Aesur]

I try to avoid giving members specific names based on room/location and just stick with LT1, B1, C1, etc.. Occasionally, I will label just beams and then call the column C at B1 or F at C at B1, etc... so it's associated with at least some member on my keyplan. Most often I am working on the designs before drafting has started, so I will sketch my layout for drafting and just add the member designation there to go back to when I can create the keyplan based on the structural drawings. When I am drafting the project myself, I will just add the beam designation on a no-plot layer in CAD for quick reference.

 

[jerseyshore]

I am in the one-man-band business right now so I will be doing all of my own drafting for this project and any future ones.

I do like the no plot layer suggestions. When I worked for a real office doing a keyplan was no problem, but since it's just me now, saving time and incorporating the keyplan into CAD would save me a lot of time. Time is money.

 

[XR250]

@JerseyShore. $550? I thought mine were a lot at $375. Mine usually only last 20 minutes so it can be hard to justify to the homeowner any more than that. Sometimes I do $500 if the crawlspace is reported to be a bit of a mess or I have to drive more than 30 minutes each way.
Maybe I should up my game.

 

[jonev10]

@jerseyshore

I just opened Forte for the first time and made an account. I cant believe that it's free! Most residential really doesn't even need paid calc software it looks like. Thank you so much for this.

 

[Aesur]

Maybe I should up my game.

It is my opinion you should, my min is upwards of 750, if close by, but this always includes written one page report/summary (more pages if pictures included) as I'm tired of the verbal "he said she said" crap.

 

[jerseyshore]

I usually charge $500 minimum. Maybe $400 if it's right in town. That's just for site visits. No report or anything else. I try to price things based on around $200/hr but still keep to that minimum. Don't want to sell myself short. And probably 70% of house site visits around here are crawlspaces that are a mess so I need to get paid accordingly.

I'd say most report and site visit jobs are $700-900 depending on how long the report will be.

It's summertime now so driving times around here will be twice as bad starting this weekend so I might tack on $50 to every job haha.

 

[gte447f]

XR250, around here, $375 is what one of the local unlicensed jacklegs charges for a "structural inspection". He is blatantly practicing engineering without a license. He uses the word "Engineering" in his company name, and he lied to me personally on the phone by claiming that he is licensed, but he is not. He doesn't provide a report to his customers, even if they ask for one. By my estimation, I think he is probably trying to leave less of a paper trail by not providing a tangible deliverable. I spoke to one home owner recently whom he told to sell their house over a few cracked drywall joints, but refused to provide anything in writing. Thankfully, he is currently under investigation by the state board. I am waiting with anticipation to see if a cease and desist order has any effect on his business practices, but honestly, I'm not holding my breath.

 

[jerseyshore]

I heard of a guy similar to that up north that markets his business as "remove-a-basement-column workshop" or something like that. He sells it to be structural engineering without saying the word engineering and his "designs" include slapping an LVL or two to the side of a 3-2x8 basement girder to open it up.

You can't worry about these types of clowns though. For me, I can afford to charge on the lower end of the ranges because I have no overhead besides insurance, but that doesn't mean I'm going to sell myself short. People need to pay not only for our time but also our experience.

 

[XR250]

XR250, around here, $375 is what one of the local unlicensed jacklegs charges for a "structural inspection"

I won't ever do a complete "structural inspection". For a $375 site visit, I will look at a few issues that were raised in a pre-purchase home inspection report or look at a concern a homeowner has or an issue a contractor needs fixing. Maybe time to charge more?!
Funny, most people are happy with my fees but I get the occasional, "you were here only 15 minutes and you want me to pay you what?"

 

[XR250]

because I have no overhead besides insurance,

Same here. I work out of my guest bedroom. Don't have any subscription software except Office. I'm not a member of any organization.
I keep it pretty lean. But, yeah, i'm gonna up my rates.

 

[DoubleStud]

Same here. I work out of my guest bedroom. Don't have any subscription software except Office. I'm not a member of any organization.
I keep it pretty lean. But, yeah, i'm gonna up my rates.

Really? I am paying for google for a basic website and google drive. AutoCAD LT. Office. Adobe acrobat pro. Quickbook.

 

[phamENG]

It's certainly possible. You don't need a website (and if you do, there are ways to get free ones), you can store data locally, there are alternative CAD programs that allow for a perpetual license, or old AutoCAD programs can still be used (I work with a designer that always asks that I save my drawings down to 2010 format for that reason), there are free PDF markup programs out there, and you can do all the accounting for a small LLC in Excel if you know what you're doing.

Having the latest and greatest is generally more convenient and can help automate some tasks, but if you built your business around manual methods and you're comfortable with them, you don't need a bunch of subscriptions.

 

[DoubleStud]

I am paying the very basic google so I get my domain email. It comes with google drive. I just want to make sure my files are safe. I am not nerdy enough to set up my own back up system. Plus if my house is on fire, I wont lose my stuff. That would be very horrible starting from scratch with all of the details.