The bid request should spell out how the numbers are presented. Perhaps go back to each of the bidders and ask for further information/clarification of their bid. Ask every bidder the same questions to help keep an apples to apples comparison. Ask where cost savings can be realized.

I will power wash your house $1,900 an hour.

For many years, I was a licensed builder and renovator.

We never sought prices for every trade and supplier before starting the build as prices, particularly building materials, can vary mightily over time.

It's up to you to provide complete approved plans and specs to get accurate quotes.

As for the variations, that's just the way it works. On our current build, painting quotes, for instance, varied from $51K to $102K. Now working with trim carpenters, again varying by 100% or more--all from experienced trades who we've worked with before.

If you're looking for certain quotes, it's best to wait till the build is underway. Otherwise, you'll likely be hit with higher prices so the contractor can cover themselves for unforseens. For instance, if the drywaller finds framing out of whack, it'll be a lot more expensive to do a proper job. (Of course, if this is a sub-division, they'll likely slap up anything!)

If you want specific components in a bid, I would call them out or list segments as owner supplied. The more you require the contractor to do, the higher your cost will likely end up. And you have no control of the quality of the materials. Plus, you won't have any idea what quality differences are available.

Are the bids for a fixed price contract or a cost plus contract?

Is this a custom home?

Maybe pick your top 2 builders and offer to pay for a complete and detailed bid.

What kind of build is this? What are your specs / plans? Are you biulding something "normal" or out of the ordinary? Are you an engineer?

The answers to these questions will help provide more interesting and accurate responses to your queries.

For example, a "standard" house can often be estimated by local builders with "decent" allowances. However - if you have your own highly customized plans, very specific tastes, want a net zero house, or something that is "different" and done to a higher level of finishing, systems, customization, etc - then you will be disappointed in the bids, and likely the trades - unless you get VERY specific.

Custom to one person is not custom to another.

Do you have actual architectural plans? With the window schedules, section details, and all the drawn out everything? Electrical plans? What about the partner to that in the Specifications Lists? A 150+ page document, by trade and room, that lists all the materials that you are asking to be bid?

People confuse estimates with bids. And you are NOT asking for a bid. You are asking for a seat of your pants guesstimate.

" Looking online electrical cost $4-9 sq ft. "

Looking on line as a judge for pricing is the best way to get taken to the cleaners quite honestly.

As long as you give the same detailed plans to each contractor, you will at least be assured that they're all bidding on the same items.

Differences will arise at that point due to a variety of factors. Some contractors are so busy that they will charge a higher price since they don't need the job. Some contractors' quality may be lower, so you pay less for lesser competency. Some contractors' profit margins may be larger or smaller, which is their prerogative.

The best way to choose a builder is to interview them and choose the one you trust the most, the one whose work you like the most, and the one who offers you the best quality for the price you're willing to pay. You are going to "live" with these people for a long time, make sure you take more than financial considerations into account.

The plans are complete to include electrical plan and engineering is done. I know everything will vary but apples to apples should be close.

I guess the way I look at it is materials and labor. For this case in particular I feel like a number has been thrown out and seeing if we bite. $61,000 for what exactly? What I would expect is at least a material cost. XX feet of XX gauge wire, XX feet XX gauge wire, XX cans, xx hours of labor, etc.

Custom home but normal 2 story. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just large.

I've been in your shoes in the past. The worst thing you can do is nitpick the bid. The contractor wants to make what he wants to make. If he lowers one thing he'll make it up somewhere else. Materials and labor PLUS PROFIT. Which will vary. Reread what I wrote.

We built in 2021. My builder is a good guy, fair and honest, but even he didn't look at our plans with a magnifying glass when he gave us our initial bid/guesstimate.

One example, our front door unit. The architect drew it as an oversize 10 ft high door with two side lites and the whole unit is 8.6 ft wide. Turns out you cannot buy anything like it off the rack, it has to be custom made. Our builder put in $8,500 for the door. The actual custom door built to match the architect designed plans cost us $20,000. Repeat this exercise for many of the components/materials in the house and we ended up 40% over the initial budget. Once we started we weren't willing to cut our wants/needs, so we paid up.

Luckily, during that time covid caused our local real estate market to go crazy hot and by the end of our project people in our neighborhood were buying 30 year old houses (that needed to be updated) for close to what we paid for a brand new custom house! In the last 3 years all of those new owners have also put in even more money to update those older homes, so it ended up working out well for our house value and equity.

The statement " The plans are complete to include electrical plan" is 100% completely at odds with this statement. " $61,000 for what exactly? What I would expect is at least a material cost. XX feet of XX gauge wire, XX feet XX gauge wire, XX cans."

If the plans are actually complete, then all of those details are included in your plans and specifications that you are furnishing to contractors. They are not unknowns. You wouldn't need a reference to a body count of recessed lights, or the brand, or the wattage, or lumens, or beam spread, or color temperature. You would have that already in a list.

I don't think your plans are as complete as you imagine them to be if you want a breakdown of the materials. That should already exist.

" Nothing out of the ordinary." is another mistake and assumption. Every custom home is different from every other custom home. This isn't a ball bearing made in a factory to be like 10M other ball bearings. It's a one off art sculpture. It's more about aesthetics and workmanship than the $19,400 worth of copper.

I agree and reinforce the above thoughts. You can find out all the components and the lengths and types of wire needed for your home. Completely doable with some time and self-education. I'll get you started by suggesting any 220v outlets for ev charging must be industrial grade for continuous service like Hubbel with wire connections torqued to 75-inch pounds. The standard receptacle is meant only for intermittent duty. It will overheat eventually and burn.

After I did the work to figure what was needed, I just decided to supply the labor. A pro hooked up the main supply to my fuse box for much less than 1k.

To add to @McDonald Enterprises, our rough electircal bid was based on a complete electrical plan, but did not include the "quality" of the recessed lights. Early on we asked the electricians to bring a sample light and discuss specs. What they finally brought over was a cheap recessed light with low lumens that was the latest technology 20 years ago. Their electrical supplier probably has a warehouse full of them at bargain basement prices.

Not exactly what we were looking for, specially with high ceilings, so we did some research for better quality recessed lights and had our builder order them through the lighting showroom. That added another $20K to the electrical budget and delayed their work for 4 weeks due to supply chain issues.

Why didn’t you pay for an interior designer to flesh out the bare bones plans you have? Before you started putting them out for guesses on costs? Without full plans, that list everything you want, you are not getting any useful information as to what the actual end total will be.

How long a job takes is really none of your business, nor is your contractor's costs. You're getting fixed price bids; take them or leave them. I would never break down costs for a potential customer.

Your expectations on a detailed bid breakdown is standard in commercial projects. Residential is another planet, very few contractors are sophisticated enough to do takeoffs let alone use estimation software. Your bids will be mostly "seat of the pants" and based on "feel" similar to jobs they typically do and the range of costs they typically have. They mostly use square foot costs, because it boils down to win some and winning more on some. If your plans/specs have anything unique or custom then they have most likely missed it or underestimated it.

The typical scenario, especially for electrical, is the owner will give a cursory look at the drawings for bid, the owner/foreman will give a cursory look at the drawings a few days before or that morning prior to barking orders to their tradesmen on site, and will only look in detail when a problem arises or they have to eat a cost, and will try to hide behind NEC because they didn't do something the drawings stated.

And the time it takes to do a detailed bid is not worth their time for a job they probably won't get.

online estimators have been completely fiction in my experience, often incomplete at the line item numbers but sometimes if lucky they're accurate. ... and they're usually outdated. Prices move a few % annually and from 2020-2024 35-50% depending on trade.

For example the last online bid one I reviewed the HVAC number was less than 50% of typical costs. Easily done if the coder only priced equipment. Federal law has increased cost of HVAC equipment over the past year.

Foam insulation is expensive. Try fiberglass as a baseline. $15-20K without garage & interiors.

Don't expect trades to break it down. You gave them specs to bid. Recessed rough ins and trims should be clearly indicated who supplies. Trims range from $4 -25+. Same with plugs & switches. You gave them a detailed electrical plan right?

You can ask how to lower the bid. Maybe use standard

I’m about to start building a house. The contract is cost, plus a fixed fee to build the house as it is currently designed. I had three builders price the project, I worked with the architect on specs for certain items, i.e. appliances to keep things consistent.
All of the bids presented had pricing from the suppliers and subs for major items included in a binder, such as, exterior doors and windows, interior lumber and trim packages, masonry, siding, roofing, lighting ( but not decorative fixtures) my chosen appliance pricing, etc. I know it’s a fairly rough estimate, but it gave me an idea of overall cost, and comparing categories across the 3 builders was interesting. Sometimes they had the same bid because they use the same supplier. I found that while there were some strange little variances in certain items, overall the biggest driver in the cost to build was the GC’s mark-up. The builder we selected looked at the project, felt confident he knew the scope of work involved and the time it would take, and was willing to oversee it for a fixed fee. That is a great relief to me. One guy was charging profit and overhead, and then a 15% fee on top of that! (I thought the 15% was the profit.).

The home is a 2 story home approx 5000 sq ft.

To be fair, if you're building a 5000 square foot house, I'm assuming you're rich. A middle-class person can't afford a house that size.

I will power wash your house $1,900 an hour.

I will buy a power washer and learn how to power wash for $1800/hour.

I've been underbid.

Sorry I've been reading but not responding as life has gotten busy.

I've been trying to compare what prices cost when we built our last home and now and understand it's apples to oranges at this point. I think a better idea would be to ask for references on their past projects for a number of different reasons.

Mrs. Pete, I'm not sure if I'm taking your post out of context or missing the meaning. I'm certainly not rich. We sold our last house in FL and were fortunate. I'm retired military. But if you're telling me that a pressure washer deserves $1800/hour I'm going to be un-retired real fast.

Just because someone is "rich" or has more money doesn't mean they should pay more.