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| Subject - Electrician's hourly service rate? | |
| Cinner |
Does anyone know the average rate an electrician would charge for doing service work. I have been asked to do some work for friends lately but I am not too sure of a rate to charge. One job was to change approximately 50 ballasts in an office space and the other job was to wire in a few new outlets in a restaurant. Is it best to charge by the hour or a total cost per job? What is a good hourly rate to charge. Tony Vancouver, B.C, Canada |
| JimmyDee | Charge out rates will often vary from $35-$75/hr (US) depending on the location. Since you may have another job that takes care of your insurance and overhead that a shop has, you will be able to cut those rates a lot and still come out good. When I did side work, I liked to have a firm price for the entire job and that way, I felt I could take my time and do the job over a period of time. Sometimes I would make out great and other times I worked for not too much per hr. Not sure how the laws in Canada apply, but I never did commercial work on the side because it was too easy to get in trouble without a contractors license. BTW welcome to the ElectricalKnowledge web site. Jim |
| Cinner | JimmyDee, If you charge a total cost per job, don't you leave yourself at risk if the job takes longer than you first encounter. For example, you estimate 15 minutes per ballast but it actually takes you 1/2 hour to change each ballast. Do you also mark up your cost of material or charge material at the same rate you buy it for. I have been charging $25.00 cdn /hour for the jobs that I have done in the past....is this too little? I feel a little guilty b/c it seems to me that changing a ballast or installing some receptacles is quite easy. Should I charge a higher rate if the difficulty level goes up? Thanks, Tony |
| JimmyDee | A firm price is always a risk but a person should know about how long it takes to do a job. Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose. Most of the time you will come out about right. You can rate the job as easy or hard and charge that way but if you feel charging $25 is a fair price, that should be for the easy to the normal electrical work. If you have PLC skills, yes, you can get more for that work. Jim |
| lctrc789 | cinner, When I first started doing electrical work, I called several contractors to see what the rate was for different areas. The only way you can be comaptible and not lose your tail is to compare and then figure your overhead, especially now with the cost of gas and insurance etc. You know what and how long some jobs take and what you are capable of, and you also know that a bid job can cost you money or you can make out good as well. I always figured it is hard to make money on any T&M job. you make just the basic amount, to get you by. Over the years my service calls have went up because of the increase along with everything else of course, but different areas charge different prices, and you have to be competitive and fair for you and the customer. IMO. |
| RS377 | quote: I agree whole heartedly, except that cinner sounds like he is doing this work on the side. If he charges a reasonable T&M rate, he's going to make out like a bandit no matter what. That being said, it also sounds like he is somewhat new to estimating and bidding, so it may be safer for him to just do it on the clock. I'm young and a very bad estimator, so I always err on the side of caution. |