huangyhg

going rates for commercial designs?
can anyone tell me what the going rate is in tx for the design of a commercial wood structure with approx. 13000 s.f.? will be using prefab roof truss system.

1. general rule for structural engineers is to charge 1.5% - 2% of the construction cost. i am not sure if your client would be willing to pay that.
2. another method is to do a sheet count and charge $1500 to $2000 per sheet. commercially though, i have seen them as low as $500. frankly, i would not do the drafting for that.
3. you can create a spreadsheet and estimate your hours to do al lt the tasks then assign an hourly rate for the tasks and get your fee that way.
4. do not forget your overhead and reimbursables.
i hope this helps.
they are 3 ways that we use to estimate design costs:
no. of sheets x cost per sheet
sum of hours for each engineering task x hourly rate plus drafting
traditional percentage of construction cost
add in additional costs for meetings, shop drawings, field observation and problem resolution.
i would think for the project described the cost would be closer to 1%. this will vary quite a bit depending upon the particular architect or contractor, the amount of services desired, seismic or no seismic, building construction type, complexities, building plan review process, east coast or west coast, etc.
don't forget the time required to check shop drawings-
we assume there will be about 350 shop drawing sheets for each 100,000 sf of framed floor. a checker might be able to get through 8 sheets a day. you get the idea.
samdamon:
i am intrigued with your 350 shop drawings for 100,000 sf estimate! is this a rule of thumb for metal trusses only or does it cover the number of structural shop drawings that can be expected on a typical project?

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