Am I Missing Anything? An Estimating Checklist for Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Contractors

You win the job. You’re fired up. Then two weeks in, a gap surfaces — a missed hanger allowance, an unpriced permit fee, three hours of supervision per floor that never made it into the bid.

It happens — and when it does, that margin disappears before the job even gets going.

Every trade estimator — from a one-man shop to a 50-person electrical contractor — can miss something when moving fast. That’s what an estimating checklist is for: catching those gaps before the bid goes out, not two weeks after you win the job.

It’s not about second-guessing yourself. It’s about building a process that holds up under pressure.

This guide walks through what a solid bid checklist covers, why each piece matters and where things tend to fall through the cracks.

Step 1: Review the Plans Before You Start Your Estimate

A lot of estimating mistakes happen before takeoff even begins. Reviewing plans can feel redundant, especially after a few years on the job when the process starts to feel rote. That’s exactly when skimming happens — and when the costly gaps slip through.

The arch set and MEP set often conflict. You’ll find walls on one drawing that don’t exist on the other. A structural beam might land right where you planned to run conduit.

Catching that during estimating is a five-minute fix. Catching it on the job is a change order.

What to look for before you pick up the takeoff tool

Before you open your takeoff tool, run through the full document package. Plans get revised, specs get updated and addenda get issued. Any one of those can change your scope.

When running through the document package, make sure to review the following:

• All current drawing sheets — architectural, structural and trade-specific
• Specification sections that apply to your scope
• Any addenda issued after the original bid set
• Existing RFIs or clarifications already in play

Write down any assumptions you’re making before you start. If something in the plans doesn’t add up, call the general contractor or design team and get clarification in writing. That paper trail protects you if the scope gets disputed later.

Step 2: Price Materials, Labor and Overhead Accurately

There are four areas where bids most commonly come up short for electrical, plumbing and mechanical contractors:

1. Materials and quantities
2. Labor hours
3. Project costs and overhead
4. Bid documentation

Work through each one before anything goes out the door.

Materials and Quantities

Start with your primary materials. The types of materials that often get missed include small-bore material such as hangers, straps, bushings, locknuts, wire nuts and penetration seals.

Quantities are just as easy to undercount as line items. A takeoff that’s missing 15% of your conduit runs or undercounts your wire by a spool will cost you even if every material type is accounted for. Double-check your counts against the takeoff before pricing.

Missing these materials can add up fast. On a mid-size commercial job, that “miscellaneous hardware” line can run into thousands of dollars if you don’t price it.

Use this as your materials gut-check before moving on:

• Have you priced every primary material by system and zone?
• Did you include rough-in hardware — hangers, straps, couplings, connectors?
• Are there specialty or long-lead items that need to be flagged for procurement now?
• Did you account for sales tax on materials, if your state requires it?
• Have you verified quantities — not just item types — against the takeoff?

If you can check every one of those off, your materials section is solid — as long as your pricing is current.

Supplier quotes expire, and material costs shift. Make sure the prices behind your quantities reflect today’s market, not last quarter’s.

Labor Hours

Labor is where a lot of bids go sideways because labor units don’t always reflect real-world conditions on that specific job.

Reference guides like the NECA Manual of Labor Units are a useful starting point, but they’re built around ideal conditions. Your actual productivity depends on your crew, your market and the specific conditions on that job.

Think about it this way: take two jobs of similar scope and square footage — one in an open warehouse, one above a drop ceiling in an occupied hospital. The material cost is roughly the same. The labor isn’t.

Site conditions, access restrictions, ceiling heights, phased work — all of it affects how long the job actually takes.

Before you lock in your labor hours, run through these:

• Have you accounted for installation hours on every system and scope item?
• Is there prefab or shop fabrication time that needs to be included?
• Did you adjust your hours for site conditions specific to this job?
• Are foreman and supervision hours in there?
• Does the schedule require overtime or shift premiums?
• Is startup, testing or commissioning in your scope — and if so, is it priced?

If you track actuals on completed jobs, use that data here. Your historical numbers are more reliable than any generic labor unit guide.

Keep in mind that standard labor units assume ideal conditions — most jobs aren’t. Common situations where hours run long include difficult ceiling heights, phased construction, retrofit work, confined space entry and prevailing wage or union jobs with crew ratio requirements.

Adjust accordingly before you lock in your numbers.

Project Costs and Overhead

These are the costs that don’t show up on a drawing, but they will absolutely show up on your invoice if you forget to include them. Permits, equipment, freight, contingency — none of them are in the plans, and all of them affect your bottom line.

Before you finalize this section, check these off:

• Did you look up the permit and inspection fees for this jurisdiction — not estimate them?
• Have you priced equipment rental — lifts, pipe threaders, any specialized tools?
• Does the job require temporary utilities or temporary power?
• Are freight, trucking and delivery fees accounted for?
• Did you build in contingency — typically 3–10% depending on job size and complexity?

That last one is worth calling out. Contingency isn’t padding. It covers the RFI that adds two hours of work, the material that arrives damaged or the inspection that requires a re-do.

It also covers the small scope additions that happen on nearly every job — the general contractor who asks you to move a panel two feet, or the drawing revision that adds a circuit you didn’t price.

Contingency isn’t a guess; it’s the buffer that keeps those normal, unavoidable bumps from eating your profit.

Bid Documentation

A complete bid isn’t just numbers — it’s how you protect yourself once the job gets awarded.

The documentation side of your bid is what keeps scope disputes from becoming financial ones, and it’s what makes life easier for everyone on your team once the job kicks off.

Before you submit, make sure you can check these off:

• Are inclusions and exclusions written out clearly?
• Are your assumptions and clarifications documented?
• Have you verified bonding and insurance requirements?
• If the bid form requires alternates, are they separated out?
• Have you confirmed the submission deadline and delivery method?

When your PM can look at the estimate and see exactly what was and wasn’t included, the handoff is cleaner and there’s less room for miscommunication once work starts.

Step 3: Do a Final Review Before You Submit Your Bid

Before the bid goes out, give it one final pass. This is your last chance to catch anything that slipped through, such as a stale material price, a missed overhead line or a bid form that isn’t filled out the way the general contractor wants it.

Work through these before you hit send:

• Does the scope in your estimate match the scope in the documents?
• Are your material prices current? Supplier quotes expire.
• Did you apply overhead and profit to everything — including those small miscellaneous lines?
• Is the bid form complete, signed and formatted the way the general contractor or owner requires?
• Do you know exactly when and how it needs to be submitted?

A complete, well-documented bid makes a statement to the general contractor. It shows you read the plans, you understand the scope and you run a tight operation.

The Right Estimating Software Makes the Checklist Easier to Work Through

Going through a bid checklist manually — jumping between PDF plans, spreadsheets and email threads — works until it doesn’t. The more complex the job, the more likely something slips.

That’s the problem McCormick was built to solve. It’s takeoff and estimating software designed specifically for electrical, plumbing and mechanical contractors.

Digital PDF takeoff, a pre-built database of materials, labor units and pricing — all of it lives in one place, so nothing falls through the cracks between programs.

Running through your estimating checklist gets a lot easier when the right tools are behind it. Book a demo with a McCormick specialist and see how it fits your workflow.