# How do you price out your lv data installs?



## lortech (Mar 7, 2012)

Not new to the trade and come from a IT background.

I have been working platform work such as fieldnation.com fieldsolutions.com and so on. Want to work more as a subcontrator to GC and business owners.


How do you price out labor and parts markup when doing LV data/voice cable installs for your customers? Do you base it on per foot of cable? height of cable? type of enviroment the cable is installed in?

I just did my first simple subcontract job under a electrican. The job required the following:

-Cable was already pulled by electrician
-10 patch 10 wall cat5e jacks(belden jacks), wall plates labeling of cable and plates
-20 patch/drop cables
-u1 cisco network switch unmanaged 24 port
-move over existing network cables from small switches to new one
-move jumper from existing binder post to new one on IBDN Bix demark which moves phone from break room to new office space
-Square footage? it is a small resteraunt and adding new jacks to existing patch panel. 
- Site is located 8 blocks from me
My going rate is 60.00 per hour and markup is 30%

Thanks


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## Black Dog (Oct 16, 2011)

lortech said:


> Not new to the trade and come from a IT background.
> 
> I have been working platform work such as fieldnation.com fieldsolutions.com and so on. Want to work more as a subcontrator to GC and business owners.
> 
> ...


............


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## chewy (May 9, 2010)

For large jobs, with dual outlets my formula is 1 man hour allowed per cable, thats pulling, terminating, testing, faceplates and labelling. 

Ive only just got into the pricing side of things but Ive been on par with the more experienced project managers pricing.


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## mikeylikesit5805 (Apr 3, 2012)

Thats not bad chewy. I was charging about .85 cents a foot.. That wasnt too bad either.


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## Edrick (Jun 6, 2010)

$125/hr for non quoted work or $125 per drop location, thats the cost of running the cable so it could be 10 drop locations at $125 a piece but then you add on the cost of jacks and cable depending. You might have 6 jacks at that one location and we'll say for estimate that a decent grade jack costs $10 that's already $60 at one location of my cost. Plus the cable which could be anything from supply house cat6 to belden plenum cat6 to SDI coax. So depending on the cable and jack type that's an add on. 

So $125 an hour or $125 per location plus materials


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## lortech (Mar 7, 2012)

*labor should be different based on type of construction*

Take for example a insurance office in a 120x120 foot space. The celing is 8 feet, drop celing easy access. Most of the desk with PC are close to each other so jacks are close. A example of 20 desk and the pricing would be much lower, then a 200,000 sq foot shopping centers with 20 POS terminals, PCs and 25 foot celings. Bid software should calculate the bid cost, unless of course, the technican/owner has done this type of work many times before. The shopping center will need to have a lift, which cost extra and mabey, clothing racks moved, meaning more labor involved. 

A minimum should be also charged if it is 10 feet or 100 feet. I worked for a company that did some cable installs at $325.00 with jacks, labels and so on. Vancouver is a expensive place to do work.






chewy said:


> For large jobs, with dual outlets my formula is 1 man hour allowed per cable, thats pulling, terminating, testing, faceplates and labelling.
> 
> Ive only just got into the pricing side of things but Ive been on par with the more experienced project managers pricing.


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