Three electrical bids come back on the same set of plans. One is meaningfully lower than the other two. What now?
If you build for a living you already know the answer is find out why, because bids don’t vary thirty percent on charisma. But knowing where to look takes some translation, and that’s what this is: the specific things worth checking on any electrical bid before it becomes a contract.
A bid should be a scope, not a number
The first test is the simplest. Can you tell, from the document, exactly what you are buying?
A complete bid separates the work: service and panel, rough-in by area, devices, fixtures, low-voltage, temp power, permits and inspections. It states allowances in plain numbers rather than burying them. It lists exclusions honestly. It says something about schedule — when rough-in happens and how long trim takes.
A single number with the words “electrical package” beside it is not a bid. It’s an opening position, and every ambiguity in it will be resolved in somebody’s favor later. Rarely yours.
The five places bids hide money
Fixture and device allowances. This is the most common gap. One bid assumes builder-grade devices and a modest fixture allowance; another assumes spec-grade devices and the fixtures your client actually picked. Same plans, different worlds. Check the allowance numbers, and check whether the allowance covers supply, install, or both.
Circuit count. Plans rarely specify every circuit. A bid that assumes the code minimum and a bid that assumes how the house will actually be used can differ by a dozen circuits — which shows up later as “that’s an extra.”
Service size and panel. If the plans don’t fix it, the bidder chooses. A 200-amp service with room to grow and a 100-amp panel that’s full on day one are very different products, and the second one becomes an upgrade the moment your client adds an EV charger or a heat pump.
Permits and inspections. Included, or “by others”? “By others” means you.
Temp power. Same question. Somebody is paying for the temporary service, and if nobody bid it, it’s the GC.
What “low” usually means
In our experience, a bid that comes in far under the others is doing at least one of these: excluding permits, assuming a smaller service, pricing the cheapest devices available, carrying thin insurance, or scoping a fraction of the work with the change orders already planned. Occasionally it means someone made an honest arithmetic mistake — which is its own risk, because a sub who realizes mid-project that they underbid becomes a sub who is very hard to schedule.
None of that means the low bid is wrong. It means the number alone can’t tell you, and the itemization can.
What to actually ask for
Three questions settle most of it:
What devices and fixtures did you carry? — resolves the biggest single variable.
What’s excluded? — resolves the second biggest.
When do you rough in, and how many days from rough to trim-ready? — resolves the one that costs you money without appearing on any invoice, because a sub who slips a week moves insulation, drywall, and everything downstream.
The part that isn’t on the page
The bid tells you the price. It doesn’t tell you whether the number holds, whether the crew shows up the week they said, whether the site gets left clean for the trade behind them, or whether the rough inspection passes on the first walk. Those things decide your schedule, and your schedule decides your margin.
That’s why we itemize and why we put the schedule expectation in writing: so the comparison is honest, and so the number you sign is the number you pay. Here’s how we work with builders — and if you have a project going out to bid, send the plans and the date you need it back.