AI tendering for electricians

An electrical tender is priced by counting points from the drawings, pricing each type of point from your labour time and materials, then adding distribution boards, containment, testing and certification as separate lines. Settle who carries the design before you price. AI can count symbols and read long specs fast; you check the count and own the price.

What makes electrical tenders hard to price?

The pack is long, the drawings change and the risk sits outside the points. A typical commercial package has lighting and power layouts, a schematic, a spec running to dozens of pages, and a schedule of rates that asks for a figure per point while the costs that hurt are in containment, boards and testing.

The trade-specific problems tend to be the same on every job:

• Price per point. Clients compare a single rate, but a double socket on a solid wall and one on a dado trunking are different jobs.
• Containment. Tray, basket and trunking runs are often shown schematically or not at all.
• Design responsibility. Specs often say "contractor to complete the design" or "design development by the electrical subcontractor", which moves risk to you.
• Spec changes. Revised layouts arrive mid-tender and the point count moves.
• Testing and certification. Someone must sign each part of the certificate, and on a bigger job that is days of work.

An electrical contractor in Essex we spoke to, a one-man band in his second year pricing tenders from drawings, tracked 60 to 70% of his time on admin. Tender packs are a big part of that for a small electrical firm, because every revision means recounting.

How do you price an electrical tender from the drawings?

Count every point by type, price each type at its own rate, then add the items that aren't points. Keep the count on a schedule with drawing references so you can recount quickly when a revision lands.

Notice that the non-point items are a fifth of the price. A rate per point that tried to carry them would look high on the schedule and would be wrong as soon as the containment changed. For setting the rates themselves, see price per point for electrical work.

Use your own minutes per point from recent jobs of the same type. Fifty minutes for first and second fix on an open-plan office ceiling grid is a different figure from a refurbishment with chased walls.

Is design responsibility in your scope?

Often it is without you noticing. Read the spec and the contract for "design", "design development", "complete the design" or "contractor's design portion"; if any of them apply to your package, you're carrying design risk and should price or clarify it.

The certificate shows why this matters. The model Electrical Installation Certificate published with BS 7671 has separate declarations for design, construction, and inspection and testing, each signed by the person responsible for that part. If you sign the design section, you're certifying that the design work you were responsible for meets BS 7671. In dwellings, Approved Document P also says installations should be designed and installed to BS 7671, and new circuits, consumer unit replacements and work in special locations such as bathrooms are notifiable.

What should an electrical tender clarify?

Design, testing, containment and builder's work, first and specifically. These are the four lines that main contractors most often read differently from the electrician.

Tender: project name, electrical installation package
Our price: £amount excluding VAT, dated date

Design
1. Price based on the consultant's design, drawings numbers and revisions and specification reference. Design responsibility remains with the designer except any items we design.
2. Cable sizes and protective devices as shown. Changes arising from design development will be valued as variations.

Points and quantities
3. Point count taken from layouts drawing numbers at revision letter: number points. Changes to layouts after this revision will be valued at our schedule rates.

Containment
4. Containment priced as shown on schematic or drawing: metres m of tray and basket. Additional containment at £rate per metre.

Testing and certification
5. Initial verification and certification to BS 7671 included for our installation only. Testing of others' work, fire alarm cause and effect and witness testing beyond number days excluded.

Builder's work and fire stopping
6. Builder's work in connection, chasing, making good, holes through fire-rated walls and fire stopping excluded.

Supplies and others
7. Incoming supply, metering and DNO charges by others.
8. Data cabling, termination and testing excluded; containment and back boxes only as listed.
9. Price valid for number days; cable and switchgear subject to supplier price changes after that date.

If you've already got exclusions in a Word document, start from that and edit it per tender. The qualifications and exclusions guide covers the general wording and how it behaves on public work.

What can AI do on an electrical tender, and what can't it?

AI is good at the counting and the reading; it's weak where the information isn't on the drawing. Treat its output as a first count you check, not a finished price.

What it does well:

• Symbol counts. Counting sockets, lights and switches on clean CAD-exported PDFs is a strong use. Scanned or hand-marked drawings are weaker, so spot-check one floor.
• Reading the spec. Pulling out design wording, testing requirements, named products and "or equivalent" clauses from a long document.
• Comparing revisions. Telling you which points moved between revision B and C, so you don't recount from scratch.
• Drafting the clarifications from your standard list with the right drawing numbers.

What still needs you:

• Minutes per point. Your labour figure depends on the building, the ceiling and the access.
• Containment routes that the drawings show only as a line or not at all.
• Design judgement. Whether a "design development" clause is a risk you'll accept, and at what price.
• Sign-off. You sign the certificate, so you sign off the price.

For a fair test of AI counts against your own, see how to test an AI take-off.

Which electrical tenders should you bid?

The ones where the design is clear, the containment is shown and you can do the testing with your own people. Use the 10-minute tender read first, and walk away from packs that hand you the design with no fee for it or fix a programme with no allowance for testing time.

Small electrical firms win most often on packages they can staff without subcontracting the testing, where a clean clarifications sheet makes them easier to compare than larger bidders. For how Nexley works for electrical firms more widely, see the electrical trade page.

Common questions