Planning Estimate
An unofficial, non-binding outline of scope, cost, and schedule — in about a minute
Budget numbers, before anyone picks up a phone
Describe your project, answer six to ten short questions, and the site assistant puts together a written outline: what the scope looks like, how complex it is, an estimated design fee and design schedule, and — kept separate — an estimated construction cost and construction schedule, with an overall timeline that puts the two together.
Design and construction are reported apart on purpose. They are different money, paid to different people, at different times. Folding them into a single figure is the fastest way to build a budget that fails later.
If the outline is a fair description of what you need, you can accept it and send it to the engineer, and ask for an introductory call in the same step.
Start Now
About a minute. Nothing reaches us until you have read the outline and chosen to send it — and what you get back is a planning range, not a proposal.
Opens the site assistant. Unofficial and non-binding.How It Works
Four steps, all of them in the same panel. You can stop at any point and nothing is sent.
Say where it is
A sentence or two about the project, plus the state and city. Location comes first because it decides whether an estimate is the right answer at all — outside the five licensed states, you get a conversation instead of numbers.
Answer six to ten questions
Short and plain: roughly how big, what is there today, occupied or empty, whether a date is already fixed. The ones that genuinely change the answer are marked required; the rest can be left blank.
Read the outline
Scope, complexity, design fee and design schedule, construction cost and construction schedule, overall timeline. Every figure is a range, and the card says so before it says anything else.
Send it, and book a call
Accept the outline and it goes to the engineer with your details and your answers. Choose a time in the same step if you want an introductory call; the engineer confirms it by email.
What the Outline Contains
One card, written in plain language, with the design side and the construction side reported separately.
- A scope summary in your own terms
- A complexity assessment, and what drove it
- An estimated design fee, as a range
- An estimated design schedule, in weeks
- An estimated construction cost for the electrical scope, as a range
- An estimated construction schedule
- An overall timeline covering both
- A reference number, so we can both find it later
Projects It Can Size
The cost model recognizes these kinds of work. Anything outside them is still worth describing — it simply gets a different answer.
- Arc flash and incident energy study
- Short-circuit and protective device coordination study
- Electrical service upgrade or replacement (600 V and below)
- Substation, unit substation or medium-voltage distribution
- Standby or emergency generator system
- Level 2 EV charging
- DC fast charging
- Photovoltaic system
- Lighting design or LED retrofit
- Building or facility power distribution design
- Custom control panel design (UL 508A)
- Controls, instrumentation and SCADA design
- PE review and sealing
- Feasibility study or engineering assessment
- Marine, waterfront or shipyard electrical
- Something else
If your project does not fit any of these, the assistant records it as something else and says so on the card rather than forcing it into a category that would make the numbers meaningless.
Before and After
What to have in front of you, and what actually happens once you press send.
What to Have Ready
None of it has to be precise. Round numbers are fine — the result is a range either way — but a blank leaves the model guessing.
- Where the project is: state, and the city if you know it
- What exists today — service size, age, what is failing — or that the site is bare
- Rough size: square feet, amps, number of chargers, panels, whatever you measure it in
- Any date that is already fixed, and what fixes it
- Whether drawings, a prior study, or a utility letter already exist
After You Accept
Accepting means “this is roughly what I need, please look at it”. It is not a signature and it buys nothing.
- The outline, your answers, and your contact details are emailed to the engineer
- If you picked a time, the appointment request travels with it and the engineer confirms it by email
- Nothing is scheduled, filed, or invoiced automatically
- The engineer reads it and comes back to you, normally within one business day
- An official proposal follows the conversation — never the form on its own
Computed, Not Generated
Worth stating plainly, because it is unusual and because it is the reason the numbers are worth anything.
The figures are not written by a language model. The assistant reads your description, sorts it into a project type, and answers the complexity questions — classification, which is what a language model is genuinely good at. Everything after that is arithmetic, performed against a cost model that is maintained by the engineer: engineering hours for the design fee, planning-level installed cost for the electrical construction scope, regional and escalation factors, and duration rules for both schedules.
That model is calibrated against published construction cost data and current equipment market conditions, and it is deliberately planning-level. It is also the single place the rules live, so the outline you see in the browser and the estimate the engineer receives cannot drift apart: when you accept, the estimate is recomputed on the server from your answers, not taken from anything displayed on your screen.
What This Is Not
This is a licensed Professional Engineer's practice. The limits below are not fine print; they are the point.
Not a proposal, not a quote
The outline creates no professional relationship and no obligation on either side. At the moment it is produced, the engineer has not seen it. Nothing in it is a commitment, and nothing in it can be relied on as one.
Ranges for typical projects, not for your site
Every figure is a planning-level range for a typical project of that kind in that region. Your building, your utility, your existing service, your site conditions and your schedule have not been examined, because nobody has looked at them yet.
No engineering advice is given
Nothing is sized and no code requirement is applied to your project. No conductor, device, or piece of equipment is selected. An answer you can build to is engineering, and engineering starts with a defined scope of work.
Five states, and no more
S. C. Machamer, P.E. holds individual Professional Engineer (Electrical) licensure in Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland and Washington; sealed engineering is not offered outside them. A project anywhere else gets a conversation about teaming with a locally licensed engineer — not an estimate. That is why location is the first question.
The official proposal comes later
A proposal with a defined scope, a fixed fee, and a schedule you can plan around is issued by Steven C. Machamer, P.E., after the project has been discussed. That document is the one that means something.
Some work is never sized this way
Safety-related nuclear scope and anything touching classified work are discussed directly, not estimated from a web form. And if there is an unsafe electrical condition right now, this is the wrong tool entirely — call a licensed electrician or your utility, and emergency services if anyone is in danger.