MEP Electrical Fees

[cdcengineer]

I'd like to poll the group what MEP design fees we're seeing. More specifically, electrical fees on resort mixed use commercial / residential buildings.

While employed at past employers, I have seen fees on larger projects calculated as a percentage of total construction costs, or % of architect's fees, or as a % of specific disciplines.

We're trying to negotiate a 312.5k square foot resort development and the construction budget is $100,000,000 (roughly $320/SF) with an estimated electrical budget of $20/SF. There are roughly 100 dwelling units (15 different typical units, which provides for some redundancy), and all the resort amenities expected for a high end mountain ski resort.

Keep in mind that the design will include power, lighting, telecom, (no fire alarm). There will be some areas with high end custom lighting and lighting control systems. Does anybody want to take a stab at where the electrical design fees should be?

 

[goodal]

Keep in mind this is mechanical, but for your Hampton Inns and such we get $125 per room with add ons for common spaces like pools, cafeterias and large conference rooms. For something that large with alot of high end facilities, I would expect it to be quite a bit higher than that, but nothing near the 3% range. For your standard job we shoot for 3% of mechanical construction cost, but we never get near that on hotels.

 

[cdcengineer]

Yeah. I would think at least 1250 per unit here plus common spaces. I'm going to take my best shot and hope for the best.

 

[Judowolf PE]

give it hell...can't hurt

 

[goodal]

If they need a mechanical quote, I'm sure I could find the time to put one together for ya. lease:

 

[cdcengineer]

Are you licensed in CO?

 

[Road Guy]

Why no fire alarm?

 

[cdcengineer]

Leave that to the FPE's

 

[willsee]

Bump

Just got my asked to provide a fee on my first job.

While I can design a project start to finish, I have never gave a fee. I have heard percentage of construction cost, estimated hours to complete x hourly rate, percentage of architect fee (how the flip do you know that). I'm just looking for ballparkish numbers on a simple design job.

I don't want to go in at 3k and the architect expect in the range of 10k and not give me a chance due to a complete lack of knowledge on fee structure.

 

[P-E]

We estimate 6-8% of the construction cost for engineering. It includes all phases of design and procurement through construction admin for all MEP. We also try to figure total hours x avg billing rate.

 

[goodal]

There are all kinds of variations to this, but for the most part 3% of mechanical cost is fair and will get you a job, especially in a larger city. If you are the lead on a project, or if its state work, you can charge 5-7%. This holds true unless the job is tiny (fee < $1,000) or huge (fee > ~$60k). Under $1k you cant charge a percentage. Charge what it is worth for your time. Over ~$60k or so we start backing off the 3%.

 

[willsee]

I ended up going with Construction fee x Architect Fee x 40% x 12% and they said it was good. I estimated the Construction Fee at almost $600,000 higher than it was so yea i probably left money on the table. Do the best job I can, track the hours, do better the 2nd time around.

Thanks for the help.

 

[cdcengineer]

What did you estimate the architects fee to be?

 

[willsee]

I did my math wrong up there.

Construction Cost x Architect Fee (6%) x 12% and it was accepted. Some things I would normally do are not in my scope (in writing, on the contract) so percentage is a little lower. Probably go 15% next time.

 

[goodal]

I don't follow the logic in your maths. How does that work? Why not a simple mech cost x 3-4%?

 

[willsee]

I don't know what typical installed square foot costs are. Assuming $13 a square foot and a 5% of that my price would have been $2000 less. Again I don't know typical installed costs since everywhere I've beem before made it out like it was nuclear launch codes to expose others to il this information. All part of the learning process and figure as I get more work and begin to build past projects to reference I will get better at it.