Structural Fee

[Bala0404]

Till now I am in the design aspect of the projects. today my manager asked me to estimate the structural fee of a three story steel building with cmu shafts and metal deck building with non load bearing cold formed sin.
BUilding is 200 ft x100 ft.
Building construction cost was not provided to me.
I am estimating as below
1. General notes, 3 plans, two foundation, 2 steel, cmu and bracing, 1 typical concrete and 1 typical steel details. All total 12 sheets.

Do we typically give the estimates based on square footage or based on sheets? I an roughly give him a price based on my experience. ( 4 weeks to do the job.w/ $80/hr approx.).
Is this how we do? or do we have to reduce the price to compete with other firms

 

[hokie66]

Your manager asked you for an estimate. You should do your best, then discuss with him. The fee would vary widely depending on your location. Consider this as a learning exercise, as I hope your manager intended.

 

[CBSE]

Hokie provided the best advice. Learn from it. Unfortunately, you win some and you lose some, part of the game. Location does play a big role. I live in a very rural area and people get upset when I tell them what the fee is.

How long have you been practicing? You should have historical reference. I have mostly based my feed off of square footage and then add based on how many custom details I see needed, building complexity adder, seismic/wind location adders, etc.

Lots goes into. Give it s shot, present it to your manager, and then get the feedback. Make sure to log it and start your base.

 

[MacGruber22]

I was very lucky and our firm is very experience and organized over the last 30 years, so I was able to learn from reviewing all our our previous job proposals stored on our network drive. I also noticed that for jobs similar to yours, our project engineers seemed to spend about 75% of the total fee, or about 80 to 90% of total man-hours. Maybe that is much different for your firm or your position. $80/hr sounds like a design engineer position. Your % of man-hours will go down if you have a project engineer interfacing between you and an upper management engineer. In the beginning, that was the hardest part for me - trying to understand how much time others have to spend concurrently with myself.

I wouldn't look at it based on square footage metrics - it is too generalized, and you will have to guess a number that gives you no feeling to the real fee required to perform the work. My opinion is that square footage price is meant for construction estimating. I would also be very careful about estimating based strictly on number of sheets. If your firm as all of the common details from similar jobs, most of the work will be tied up on a smaller proportion of sheets. Obviously, things change if you are drafting (or Revit).

You will also have to think about how your firm handles construction admin. phase - hourly? Lump sum not to exceed? Lump sum? Maybe your boss is only asking for the fee to get to 100% CD's.

Use a rational approach and explain your reasoning to your boss. It is a good opportunity to learn/advance.

"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."

 

[Guastavino]

I'm with the others. Sounds like your manager is seeing how you attempt to solve a problem. My advice is to take your best stab at it, have a reason for your number, be able to defend it, but also be ready to learn.

As a one-man shop myself, I'd say estimating fees is one of the hardest things that I have to do. You want there to be a fine line between what the market will bear and what you charge, and frankly, I think I need to increase my fees because I haven't heard any complaints lately!

More specifically, I do a few things:

1. I look at 0.5%-1% of construction cost as a fee.
2. I estimate my time as to how long it will take, calculate hours times an hourly rate.
3. I do the "gut feel" method.

Then, I merge all those numbers in my head and hope they are all somewhat close. Then I adjust upwards or downwards for the amount of liability I take on.

Then, I learn how long it really takes later and hopefully learn from that in the future.

 

[delagina]

We do industrial not commercial.

We go by number of drawings. How many hours it takes for engineers, designers, project engineers, etc.. to finish all your drawings for IFC. You also need rate for engineers, designers, etc. because you have different rates multiplied by your hours.

Say your standard is 16 hours per plan, 8 hours for general notes, etc. for designers to draw it. Then you need engineer hours to design the building and foundation say 160 hours. Then all other stuff like meetings, site visit, etc... How about geotech report? Will client be hiring third party geotech or it's part of your bid so you will have to add dollars for that. Is this lump sum or T&M.

 

[Bala0404]

Thank you all for your support and encouragement.

I made it with in 10% of my boss estimate. Took all your advice and my past experience in how much time it takes for me to do.

The difference in 10% is because of misc meeting times and small difference in company multiplier. I did it with all your help.

Now I have to finish the project on time and with in budget like 80-90% of budgeted hours to keep project profitable. LIke how MacGruber22 mentioned.

I divided it based on sheets. and estimated time for each sheet. Specifications and design calculation time.

Once again thank you all.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

Once you figure out how to get a perfect estimate every time then please let us know.

Good luck.

Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH, MA)
American Concrete Industries

http://www.americanconcrete.com

 

[XR250]

I only do jobs "by the hour". Fortunately, I have good clients who are OK with that. In the end, however, I charge what the job is worth based on the complexity and liability.