Why won't my electrician give me a labour and materials breakdown? The Conduction Company gets asked this a handful of times a year, usually by clients who have worked in construction. Jordan Statham, its director and a registered electrician and electrical inspector, calls the answer "a hard-line policy I set many moons ago."
The Conduction Company quotes one fixed price for a finished result, not labour and materials. If a job takes longer or needs more parts than we allowed for, that's our cost, not yours. A breakdown would show our estimate of the inputs. It wouldn't change what you pay.
Every quote from The Conduction Company is broken into sections. Each section names the work and carries its own price, and the price on the quote is what you pay for the work described. So what matters is the price of each section, not what goes into it.
What is the difference between a fixed price and cost plus?
On a cost-plus job you pay for what goes in, so a labour and materials split is how you check it. On a fixed price from The Conduction Company, the price is set before the work starts, and a split doesn't change it. That is how The Conduction Company's fixed-price promise works.
"It's a fixed price, not cost plus," says Jordan Statham. "Like a pizza shop: they'll tell you the price of the pizza, not the cost of the cheese, the chef's time and the power for the oven."
Are the materials and hours on a quote exact?
No, they are allowances. The Conduction Company does work out time and materials when it builds a price, as its guide to how an electrical job is quoted explains. Our pricing system builds every section from the real time and cost of our own completed jobs.
Pricing from averages is what lets us quote quickly. It also means a materials list might show three lengths of conduit where your site only needs two. On some jobs we use more than the allowance, and on some less. The price is the same either way.
Why won't an electrician show the hours on a quote?
Because hours turn a fixed price back into an hourly rate in people's minds, says Jordan Statham, and they cause the most friction. They were the main reason he set The Conduction Company's rule.
"If we price three hours and the job takes two, clients feel short-changed. If it takes four, nobody mentions it," he says. "Some jobs we win a little and some we lose a little."
Showing the hours led to awkward conversations, for clients and for the team. So The Conduction Company gives the final price for each section and stands behind it.
Everything here is about quoted work. Work charged by the hour is a different arrangement, because there the hours are what you pay for.
What happens if the job changes after I accept the quote?
The Conduction Company prices the change, and you approve it before the work is done. Say you ask for something extra, or the team opens something up and finds a problem nobody could see. Either way, you see the price first.
"What you see is what you pay, and what you get for it," says Jordan Statham.
In short
A labour and materials breakdown is how you check a cost-plus job. The Conduction Company quotes a fixed price for a finished result, so a split would not change what you pay. The materials and hours behind each section are allowances, and if a job runs over, that is the company's cost. Any change is priced and approved before the work starts. This is The Conduction Company's own policy, set by its director, Jordan Statham.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get my quote broken into sections?
Yes. Every quote from The Conduction Company is broken into named sections, each with its own price. That is as far as it goes: no section is split into labour and materials.
Can I ask about a section of my quote?
Yes. If you have a question about any section, The Conduction Company is happy to talk it through, including what the work covers.
