E-House Specification: From the Owner's Spec to a Priced Quote

If you have quoted an e-house, you know the switchgear is the part your price book already covers.

The hard part is the building around it, and the long list of small duties an owner's e-house specification spreads across its appendices and data sheets.

An e-house is a prefabricated electrical building. It is built on a steel base called a skid, fitted with switchgear, batteries, cooling, lighting and fire protection, then tested in the factory and shipped to site in one or more sections.

This guide is about the quote. It walks through what an e-house quote contains, line by line, and then shows a full example draft quote for a real public package: the B34 switchgear building that Bechtel National put out for bid for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant.

For each line we show what drives its price and the page where the package asks for it.

Then we look at the places where the package leaves money open, the lines that have to say TBD, and the questions that should go back to the customer before the bid closes.

It is written for estimators, proposal engineers and applications engineers at e-house builders, and for switchgear makers who build their own houses.

The gear inside has its own pricing traps, which we covered in how to quote switchgear from twelve real specifications. This piece is about pricing the whole building as one quote.

In brief

• An e-house quote is about a dozen priced lines with a scope table around them. The lines cover the building, the power equipment, cooling, the battery room, fire protection, lighting, arc ducts, shipping sections, the factory test, the work kept by others and the warranty.
• Our example draft quote for Hanford's 202-page package comes to $2,489,550 plus a warranty that is still TBD. It is priced with sample rates, not a real customer's rates.
• Three lines carry most of the money. The building shell, the two Eaton switchgear lineups and the UPS and DC system add up to about 79 percent of the priced total.
• The package leaves one decision open that moves money: who installs and tests the fire alarm. The two readings are $36,800 apart, so the draft carries one, prices the other and asks the customer.
• The warranty stays TBD because the package has no warranty clause. Other e-house documents ask for anything from twelve months to twenty years, so a guess could be far off.
• The lines that are easiest to miss are small ones, such as the arc ducts through the wall, the cable tags at each shipping split and the second inspection visit at your plant.

What an e-house quote contains, line by line

Before the example, here is the shape of the quote itself. Most e-house quotes follow the same pattern, whatever name the e-house specification gives the building.

The five public documents we read for this guide call it a switchgear house, a switchgear building, a prefabricated equipment enclosure, an electrical building and a prefabricated switchroom.

Builders also say power distribution center or power control room. The quote looks much the same for all of them.

The priced lines

1. The building comes first. This line covers the steel skid, the walls, the roof, the floor, the insulation, the doors and the coating. It is usually priced per square foot of floor, because the size drives the steel weight and the shop hours.
2. The power equipment is often the biggest line. It covers the switchgear lineups, and sometimes transformers, motor control centers or drives. When the owner names the maker, this line is mostly a bought-out price plus your margin.
3. The UPS, the DC system and the low voltage distribution come next. A UPS is an uninterruptible power supply, a battery-backed source that keeps control power on when the main supply drops.
4. Cooling and heating are priced by the number and size of the units. The owner's redundancy rule and room temperatures decide both.
5. The battery room has its own fit-out, with ventilation for hydrogen, alarms, an acid-resistant finish and an eyewash.
6. Fire protection usually splits into two lines. One is suppression, which means putting a fire out, and the other is detection and alarm, which means sensing smoke or heat and raising the alarm.
7. Lighting, receptacles and building power form one lot.
8. Arc-resistant switchgear often needs ducts that carry the hot gas of an internal fault out of the building, and that is building work.
9. Shipping sections and rigging cover the splits, the lifting gear, the rigging calculation and the cable work at each joint.
10. The factory acceptance test and any third-party inspection get their own line, because they cost days, people and visits.
11. Work kept by others is listed with no price, so the scope is visible to everyone who reads the quote.
12. Commercial lines, such as the warranty, close the list.

What travels with the lines

A priced list is not a full quote. Three more parts go with it, and each of them protects the price.

• The clarifications say which reading of the package you priced wherever it allows two. This is where a call you made becomes part of the offer.
• The exclusions say what you are not supplying. When the owner has already written its own list of work by others, the strongest exclusion quotes it word for word.
• The questions for the customer list what the package does not answer. On a public bid the answers usually go to every bidder, so nobody wins by guessing low.

Every line, clarification and exclusion should carry the page it came from. That is what lets a reviewer check the quote quickly, and what lets you defend it after the award.

The example: a draft quote for Hanford's B34 switchgear building

To make this concrete, we built an example draft quote for a public package. It is an example draft quote priced with sample rates. It is not a quote for a real customer, and it is not a price anyone bid.

The package is the Engineering Specification for B34, the BOF switchgear building at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, issued for bid in July 2024. Bechtel National, Inc. is the buyer, working for the Department of Energy.

With its exhibits, appendices and data sheets, the package runs to 202 pages.

The building is the Basis of Design size of 80 by 30 feet, from the data sheet on PDF page 162.

The building holds two 13.8 kV arc-resistant switchgear lineups, a UPS, a 125 V DC system, a transformer, panelboards, a battery room and a control room.

The sample rates behind it

The draft shows the rates it used, so a reader can see where the numbers come from. These are sample rates as of October 2026:

• Shop labour is $92 an hour.
• Structural steel is $1.40 a pound.
• The margin is 24 percent.

With a builder's own rate book and past quotes, every unit price below would be that builder's own. The structure of the quote is the part to learn from, not the dollar amounts.

The example draft quote

Page references follow the package. "p." is the printed page of the specification and its appendices, and "PDF p." is the PDF page, which we use for the data sheets.

The priced lines add up to $2,489,550. Because the warranty is not priced yet, the draft tells the estimator to read the total as $2,489,550 plus TBD, and never as a finished number.

The draft has 13 lines and one call. Twelve of the lines carry a page reference. The one without a page is the warranty, and that is the point of it: the package has no page to cite.

What drives the price of each line

Here is each line of the example, what moves its price, and where the package says so.

Where another public e-house document asks for something different, we show that too. It shows how far the same line can move from one owner to the next.

Line 1: the building shell, $876,000

The building line is 2,400 square feet at $365 a square foot. The 2,400 comes straight from the data sheet, which says the "Basis of Design building size is 80ft x 30ft" (PDF page 162).

The floor rating drives the steel. Hanford designs floors for the equipment weight or "a uniform load of 250 psf", whichever is greater (printed page 20, PDF page 24).

A heavier floor means deeper skid beams, more welding and more pounds of steel at the steel rate. The floor load is the first number to check on any e-house, because it sizes everything under the equipment.

The package also sets the building on piers "raised 7 ft. (minimum) above grade" (printed page 2, PDF page 6). The piers are foundations, which the buyer keeps, and so are the stairs and platforms that reach the doors.

Other owners move this line a long way. Sydney Water asks for a double floor with a raised top layer and a two-hour fire rating on the whole floor assembly (pages 34 and 35).

NNSS, the Nevada National Security Site, asks for 11-gauge steel walls and roof, R-19 walls and an R-30 ceiling (printed page 11, PDF page 13). Each of those is a different price per square foot.

Line 2: the two switchgear lineups, $797,000

Hanford asks for two 13.8 kV "Type 2C arc-resistant switchgear line-ups" with main and tie breakers (printed pages 2 to 4, PDF pages 6 to 8).

It lists IEEE C37.20.7, the test guide for internal arcing faults (printed page 11, PDF page 15).

Type 2C is a test class for arc-resistant gear. It means the gear protects people standing at the front, the back and the sides, and that an arc in one compartment stays out of the compartments next to it.

The biggest driver of this line is not your own shop, because the package tells you whose gear to buy.

The switchgear is in Exhibit 1, so the lineups come from Eaton, and no equal is offered. That makes line 2 a bought-out price.

In a real quote it is built from Eaton's quotation to you, the cost of receiving and fitting the gear into the building, and your margin.

The sample draft carries two lineups at $398,500 each.

Sole source changes how you protect the price. If Eaton's quotation to you is valid for a shorter time than your quote to the buyer, the gap is your risk, and it belongs in the clarifications.

We wrote about that gap in how long a quote should be valid for.

Where an owner does allow other makers, the words "or approved equal" decide how much room you have. We covered when that phrase helps a bidder in or approved equal: when to bid and when to walk away.

Line 3: UPS, DC system and distribution, $286,400

This lot covers the GUTOR UPS, the 125 V DC system with its batteries, a 480 to 208/120 V transformer and the panelboards. Hanford lists three panelboards and two control cabinets (printed pages 2 to 4, PDF pages 6 to 8).

The battery size drives most of this price. Hanford sizes its DC battery for a "three-hour load profile" plus 15 percent, with a 10-hour recharge (printed page 4, PDF page 8).

Put that next to NNSS, which asks for a battery that carries a "twelve hour outage", with a 12-hour recharge (printed page 14, PDF page 16).

For the same load, a battery that has to last twelve hours is several times the size of one that lasts three. It costs more, it weighs more on the skid, and it needs more floor and more ventilation.

So if you price the DC system from a past job, check the battery hours first, because this line moves a long way on that one number.

Line 4: heat pump units for three zones, $103,600

The draft carries seven wall-mounted heat pump units at $14,800 each. The count comes from two rules in the package, and they have to be read together.

The words "any room" matter. Each room has to survive losing one unit, so a room that needs one unit gets two, and a room that needs two gets three.

Sizing one system for the whole building with one spare would give a smaller, cheaper line, and it would not meet this sentence.

The data sheet then gives each room its own temperature (PDF page 164):

• The electrical rooms may run to a normal maximum of 95 °F, with an abnormal maximum of 104 °F.
• The battery room has to stay between 72 and 77 °F.
• The control room has to stay between 68 and 75 °F.

Those are the three zones on line 4. The same data sheet gives the outdoor design conditions, 101 °F dry bulb in summer and 5 °F in winter, which set the heat gain through the walls and the heating duty.

Hanford also asks for each room to be controlled on its own, and for outside air at 0.6 cfm per square foot in the electrical and control rooms (printed page 22, PDF page 26).

The same page asks for "an interlock that disables the HVAC upon a signal from Buyer's fire alarm system". That is wiring and testing, and it should sit on one of the lines rather than fall between them.

Other owners write the rule differently, and the line moves with it. UFGS 26 13 14, the Department of Defense guide specification, leaves the designer a choice between no redundancy, one extra unit and two independent systems (page 39).

Sydney Water wants at least two units plus 25 percent capacity for the future (pages 30 to 31). NNSS states no redundancy at all.

Line 5: battery room fit-out, $48,900

Batteries give off hydrogen while they charge, and the room has to keep it well below the level where it can burn. Hanford sets the limit "below 1% of the room volume" (printed page 23, PDF page 27).

That one rule brings several items onto the line (printed page 4, PDF page 8):

• The room needs an exhaust fan sized to hold the hydrogen below the limit.
• The alarm needs a control panel, a horn and strobe tower, and a pager.

Hanford also asks for an acid-resistant floor and wall finish around the batteries (printed page 33, PDF page 37).

It wants a plumbed eyewash station with tempered water, a flow switch alarm and a floor drain (printed page 32, PDF page 36).

A plumbed eyewash is a different price from a portable one. It needs water, a drain and an alarm.

NNSS asks only for a portable eye wash station (printed page 10, PDF page 12), so the same line would shrink on that job.

Line 6: the pre-action sprinkler system, $96,500

A pre-action system is a sprinkler system whose pipes hold air instead of water until the detection system opens a valve. That keeps water out of the pipes over live equipment.

Hanford puts it in the builder's scope, to NFPA 13, with its valve in a heated "doghouse" under the building (printed page 5, PDF page 9).

Its appendix asks you to design, install, flush and test the system, including "earthquake bracing", and to keep the doghouse at the building's own temperature (printed page A4, PDF page 99).

Design, bracing, flushing and testing are all hours. They belong inside this line, not in a change order after the award.

This is the line that moves most between owners. NNSS asks for smoke detectors and "one (1) fire extinguisher" (printed page 9, PDF page 11).

Lake Havasu City asks for a total flood clean agent system, which uses a gas to put out a fire without water (page 7).

The same type of building can carry one extinguisher or a full sprinkler system, depending on whose specification you hold. A fire line copied from the last job is one of the easiest ways to misprice an e-house.

Line 7: fire detection and alarm, $58,400

The draft prices the fire alarm as furnished, installed and tested by the builder, because that is what the main text says (printed page 5, PDF page 9).

The appendix reads differently, and that is the one call in this draft. We come back to it below, with both prices.

Line 8: lighting, receptacles and building power, $64,300

Hanford says "Interior Lighting shall be LED" (printed page 40, PDF page 44).

The main text sets "30 Average Maintained foot-candles" for all rooms (printed page 41, PDF page 45), and the data sheet sets 50 in the control room (PDF page 165).

Here the package settles its own conflict. Its order of precedence runs "Purchase Order", "Single Line Drawings", "Data Sheets", "This Specification" (printed page 8, PDF page 12), so the data sheet wins.

The draft carries 50 foot-candles in the control room and says so on the line. More light in one room means more fixtures in that room only, so the change sits inside the $64,300 lot rather than on a line of its own.

The same page says conflicts "shall be identified in writing and submitted to Buyer for resolution." So even a conflict the precedence rule settles goes into the clarifications, with the reading you priced.

Line 9: arc exhaust ducts, $38,700

Arc-resistant gear sends the hot gas of an internal fault out through a planned path. Hanford wants that path to end outside the building.

That makes the duct building work. The draft carries two ducts at $19,350 each, covering the duct route, the opening through the wall and a clear zone outside.

With two lineups, two duct runs is the natural reading, and the estimator should confirm it against Eaton's drawings.

The clear zone has knock-on effects. Hanford keeps its lightning rods "outside of the arc flash ducting restricted area" (printed page 29, PDF page 33), so the duct exits have to be placed before the rest of the outside of the building is laid out.

The same exhibit asks "whether the arc testing has been performed with the IR viewer ports installed" (printed page 66, PDF page 70).

These are infrared windows for checking cable joints with the doors shut. The answer comes from Eaton, so it belongs in the request you send them.

Line 10: shipping sections and rigging, $73,000

A building 80 by 30 feet is far too big to go down a road in one piece. The draft splits it into four shipping sections at $18,250 each.

A shipping split is a joint where the building is cut into sections that travel separately and are bolted together on site. Every split adds cost in four ways:

• Hanford wants removable lifting lugs and a rigging calculation (printed pages 17 and 48, PDF pages 21 and 52).
• Every cable that crosses a split is disconnected for the trip and tagged for the site crafts who reconnect it (same pages).
• The ground bar needs a 4/0 bare copper jumper wherever it crosses a split (printed page 43, PDF page 47).
• Each section's weight and center of gravity has to be marked on the drawings and on the outside of the packaging (printed page 49, PDF page 53).

More sections mean more of all four, so the section count is a price decision as well as a transport one.

Freight itself is not on this line, because Hanford keeps "Shipping and conveyance" for the buyer (printed page 5, PDF page 9).

Other owners differ. Lake Havasu City wants the cost of escorts for oversize loads included in the proposal (page 16).

NNSS asks for "one single section with no shipping splits" (printed page 7, PDF page 9), which only works for a small enclosure like its own.

Line 11: witnessed factory test and NRTL inspection, $46,750

A factory acceptance test is the set of tests run at your plant before shipment, to prove the finished building works. Hanford's list (printed pages 46 to 47, PDF pages 50 to 51) includes these:

• You test the building services, including HVAC, lighting, receptacles and alarms.
• You run an insulation resistance test, often called a megger test, on every bus section. Unless the maker says otherwise, 15,000 V equipment passes at 5,000 megohms with 2,500 V dc applied.
• You check every power cable you installed, point to point, and you check that every bolted joint within the shipping limits is torqued to the maker's value.
• You test the fire alarm wiring to NFPA 72, and you start up the UPS.

The data sheet answers "Is test to be witnessed" with "Yes" (PDF page 166). A witnessed test means the buyer's people are in your plant, so you price the days you hold the building for them, not only the hours of testing.

Then comes the inspection. An NRTL is a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory, a lab that OSHA recognizes to test and certify electrical equipment.

The lab's fee and its visit go on this line. The buyer's representative then runs "an independent field evaluation" at your plant, which is a second visit to schedule and host.

Line 12: foundations, setting, freight and site tests, by others

This line has no price, and it is one of the most useful lines in the quote.

Hanford's "Work by Others" list keeps "All foundations", "Mounting/installation of completed building" and "Shipping and conveyance" (printed page 5, PDF page 9).

It also keeps the water lines and the "Supply of stairways, railings, landings, and platforms" (printed pages 5 to 6, PDF pages 9 to 10).

Site testing is kept as well: "All site tests will be performed by Buyer." (printed page 47, PDF page 51).

The draft copies the buyer's own words into the line and keeps their pages. An exclusion quoted from the buyer's page is hard to argue with after the award, and it stops a reviewer from adding cost for work the buyer has already kept.

Other owners draw this line in other places. Lake Havasu City has its contractor set the building but asks the builder to price supervision (page 17) and help for the owner's commissioning crew (page 1).

NNSS asks for field service "quoted as an option" (printed page 8, PDF page 10).

Line 13: warranty, TBD

The draft found no warranty clause in the Hanford text, so the line says TBD. We explain why that is the right answer in the section on TBD lines below.

Where the e-house specification leaves money open

Most of a package settles itself if you read it closely. A few places do not, because two pages give two different answers, and the price depends on which one you follow.

In the example, one of those places moves real money. The draft turns it into a call: it carries one reading, prices the other, and shows both totals.

The fire alarm call: $36,800 at stake

The main body puts the whole fire alarm job in the builder's scope: "Furnishing, installation, and testing of fire detection and alarm system (FDE)" (printed page 5, PDF page 9).

Appendix B agrees that the system "shall be furnished by SELLER". Its next paragraph then says this:

Appendix A defines CONTRACTOR as "primary contractor, Bechtel National, Inc." (printed page A5, PDF page 100). Read literally, the appendix has the buyer installing and testing a system the builder only furnishes.

The difference is $36,800, and all of it sits on line 7.

Why the draft carries the higher reading

The draft carries the main text, for two reasons. Printed page 5 puts all three duties in the builder's scope, and the factory test on pages 46 and 47 already checks the fire alarm wiring, which fits a builder who installs it.

Carrying the higher reading leaves nothing out. If the buyer confirms the appendix, the price comes down by $36,800 and nobody is upset.

If you carried the lower reading and the main text turned out to govern, you would install and test the system at your own cost.

The other reading is not thrown away. It stays beside the line with its own price, and because both prices were worked out up front, flipping the call moves the total at once.

How to write the call into the quote

A call only protects you if the customer can see it. In the quote it shows up in three places:

1. The line itself says which reading it carries: "Furnished, installed and tested by us, as the main text reads."
2. The clarifications name both pages and say that if the buyer confirms Appendix B, line 7 falls to $21,600 and the total falls by $36,800.
3. The questions for the customer ask which one governs, before the bid closes.

Two readings are not always a mistake

Before you call something a contradiction, check whether the two lines could both be true, or whether a word means something different from what you assumed.

Many readers assume "contractor" means them. In Hanford's appendices it means Bechtel, the buyer, and that switch is the whole reason the fire alarm reading splits in two. The main body calls you the "Seller".

Other e-house documents need the same care. Sydney Water gives one floor deflection limit on page 34 and another on page 35. They may apply to different layers of the floor, but if both apply to the frame, the tighter one needs stiffer steel and raises the building line.

Lake Havasu City uses contractor, vendor and manufacturer for overlapping work, and you cannot tell from the text whether it means two parties or one. That decides whether work such as installing the clean agent system, which page 1 gives to the vendor and page 16 to the contractor, sits in your price or in someone else's.

In cases like these, carry one reading, note the price of the other, and ask, rather than burying an assumption in the price.

Readings the draft settles without a call

Not every difference becomes a call. When the package gives its own rule, the draft follows the rule and writes down what it did:

• The control room lighting follows the data sheet at 50 foot-candles, because the order of precedence puts data sheets above the specification text. The line says so.
• The cooling follows the "any room" wording, so each zone keeps a spare unit. The line says so too.

A call is kept for a choice the package does not settle and that moves money. In this package there is one.

Behind the lines, the example draft also keeps a record of 24 smaller decisions, each with the case against it, so the estimator can check any of them.

The same kind of call in other e-house packages

If you quote these buildings often, you will meet calls like this in most packages. Here are the ones in the other four public documents we read, with the line each one moves and how a quote can handle it.

TBD lines and the questions for the customer

A TBD line is a line the quote knows it needs but cannot price yet, because the package does not give enough to price it. TBD stands for "to be determined".

A TBD line is honest, while a guessed line is a risk nobody can see.

If an estimator types a number into a line the package does not support, the next person to read the quote cannot tell that number from one with a page behind it.

Why the warranty stays TBD

The Hanford text we read has no warranty clause. The terms may sit in the purchase order or the buyer's general conditions, but they are not in this package.

Other e-house documents show how far a warranty can move the price:

• UFGS 26 13 14 asks for a "no-dollar-limit warranty for the metal building system" of "[10] [15] [20] years" (page 26), with repairs within "[32]" hours of notice.
• Lake Havasu City asks for 12 months, starting "after the equipment is commissioned at site" (page 10). If commissioning slips, the end of your warranty slips with it.

Twelve months of cover and twenty years of cover are not the same cost. Until the buyer says which terms apply, any number on the warranty line would be a guess, so the draft leaves it as TBD and says so in the total.

The three questions in the example

Whatever the package cannot settle becomes a question, written so the estimator can paste it straight into the reply. The example has three, and each one says what it does to the price.

Why the noise test question matters

Hanford asks for "an acoustic noise test for each ASD assembly" (printed page 47, PDF page 51). An ASD is an adjustable speed drive, a drive that runs a motor at different speeds.

No drive appears in Hanford's equipment list, so the draft does not price a noise test. If the buyer says there is a drive, the factory test line gains a test, and the drive itself may become a new line.

Asking now costs one email, while finding out after the award costs a test you did not price.

When to send the questions

Send them before the bid closes, through whatever channel the package names for questions. On a public bid the answers usually go to every bidder, which keeps the field level.

If the answers do not come back in time, the quote still goes out with the call, the TBD and the clarifications written in. The buyer can then see exactly what you priced and what you did not.

How to check an e-house draft quote before it goes out

Whether a person or a tool wrote the first draft, someone senior should check it before it goes out. Here is a checklist for an e-house draft, in the order we would work.

1. Check that every line has a page. Open three or four of the pages at random and make sure the line says what the page says. A line with no page should be TBD or a question.
2. Check the quantities against the package. In the example, 2,400 square feet is 80 by 30 feet from the data sheet. Seven heat pumps should match three zones that can each lose one unit. Four sections should suit your crane, your bay doors and the road limits.
3. Check the scope against the buyer's own list. Every item in "Work by Others" should be on the by-others line, and nothing on that list should be priced anywhere else in the quote.
4. Check the named makers. Where the package directs a maker, as it does with Eaton and GUTOR, the price should come from that maker's quotation, and their validity should cover yours.
5. Check every call. Each one should name both pages, carry one reading, show the other with its price, and appear in the clarifications.
6. Check the TBD lines and the total. Every TBD should be named in the total line and in the questions.
7. Check the rates. The draft should say which rates it used and when they were set. In the example they are sample rates as of October 2026.
8. Compare with a past job. Put the price per square foot and the share of bought-out equipment next to a building you have already quoted. A big gap is either a real difference in the package or a mistake, and you want to know which.

A compliance matrix helps with the first and third checks. It has one row per requirement, with your answer beside it: comply, clarify or take exception. Our specification compliance matrix template is a starting point.

The commercial parts of a bid, such as the bid form and how long the price must hold, are covered in what a switchgear bid package actually asks you to price.

The small lines that slip

The big lines are hard to miss. The small ones are where a careful reviewer earns their time:

• The arc ducts need wall openings and a clear zone outside, which is building work even though it starts at the gear.
• The cable tags and copper jumpers at a shipping split are small, but they repeat at every joint.
• The buyer's independent field evaluation is one more visit to host at your plant, after the NRTL's own.
• A plumbed eyewash needs water, a drain and an alarm, where a portable one needs none of them.
• The interlock between the HVAC and the buyer's fire alarm is wiring and testing that no line owns unless you give it to one.

How Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine produces this kind of draft

The example above is the kind of draft our AI Quoting Engine is built to produce. A bid package goes in, and a priced draft quote comes out in the manufacturer's own pricing, ready for the estimator to review.

For an e-house, that means the whole package goes in at once: the e-house specification itself, its exhibits, its appendices and its data sheets. The data sheets matter, because in this package they outrank the text.

It prices the way your company prices

The engine learns each manufacturer's pricing from that company's own past bid packages, the quotes it sent back, and its costing workbooks and rate books.

So the unit prices on the draft follow your rules, not an industry average. In the example we used sample rates. With your records behind it, the same lines would carry your numbers.

That also keeps pricing consistent when a senior estimator is away, because the company's rules are written into the engine and not only kept in one person's head. We wrote more about that risk in how to capture estimator knowledge.

What the draft gives the estimator

• Every line has a quantity, a unit price, an amount and the page it came from, including pages in the appendices and the data sheets.
• Lines the package does not settle say TBD instead of carrying a guess.
• Choices the package leaves open become calls, each with the price of both readings, and flipping a call moves the total at once.
• Questions for the customer are written out, ready to paste into the reply.
• Work the buyer keeps is listed as by others, in the buyer's own words.

What the estimator still decides

The engine does not decide compliance, and it does not set the final price. The estimator checks the draft, changes what they know better, settles the calls and sends the quote.

What changes is where their time goes. Instead of spending days reading 202 pages to build a first draft, they spend it on the decisions that need a person, which also means the team can quote more bids without adding estimators.

If you want to test it on your own work before you rely on it, our pilot protocol runs the engine blind on your own past quotes against a pass bar agreed in writing.

The published bar is 7 of 10 job totals within 15 percent of the quote you filed.

For switchgear and switchboard builders, the same approach is described on one page: AI quoting for switchgear and switchboard manufacturers.

Sources

• Bechtel National, Inc. for the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, Engineering Specification for B34, BOF Switchgear Building, 24590-BOF-3PS-EKL0-T0001 Rev 1, July 2024, issued for bid, with exhibits, appendices and data sheets. This is the package behind the example draft quote.
• US Department of Defense (USACE, NAVFAC, AFCEC), UFGS 26 13 14, Switchgear House, November 2021. A guide specification that designers edit for each project.
• Nevada National Security Site, Specification for Metal Clad Switchgear Prefabricated Equipment Enclosure, 02119-SPC-E03 Rev 0, 3 December 2018. Read from a third-party mirror.
• Lake Havasu City, Arizona, Section 13127, Prefabricated Structures - Electrical Building, undated, file made January 2010. Archived copy; the city's own link no longer works.
• Sydney Water, Technical Specification - Electrical, CPDMS0022, Version 14, 20 February 2026. Low voltage switchrooms.

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