The conversation always happens the same way. The job is 95% done, the GC wants closeout documents, and somebody on your crew spends three evenings transferring six months of red pen onto a clean set. You put the hours on the pay app. The GC says as-builts are part of your scope. Now you are arguing about work that definitely happened.
Electrician as-built and redline drawing hours billing comes down to one thing: whether there is a dated, named, located record of the markup, or just a number. "34.5 hrs — as-builts" loses that conversation. "Tue 1:10p–3:40p — redlined panel schedule LP-2A and feeder reroute at grid C4 per RFI 31" ends it.
The charge was almost certainly fair. The explanation was missing. This post gives you the scope test, the daily log format, the sample contract and change-order wording, and the worked arithmetic — all of it usable with a clipboard and a red pen.
What Counts as As-Built and Redline Hours on an Electrical Job?
Redline hours are the minutes your crew spends marking the field set when installed conditions differ from the print. As-built hours are the separate labor of transferring those redlines onto a clean record set at closeout.
Two different activities, two different people usually, two different weeks. They get lumped together on the pay app, which is part of why they get rejected together.
On electrical work the markup events are specific and repetitive:
- Homerun re-routes around ductwork, structure, or a plumbing conflict
- Panel schedule revisions — circuits added, moved, re-numbered, spares consumed
- Device relocations after a furniture or casework layout change
- Fixture substitutions and the circuiting changes that follow
- Conduit routing changes forced by field conditions or by another trade getting there first
- Feeder size or routing changes issued by RFI
Are As-Built and Redline Hours Billable or Included in Base Scope?
Redline upkeep is usually base scope; the labor caused by the change you are redlining usually is not. The contract governs, and anyone who gives you a flat yes or no has not read yours.
That distinction is the whole game. Run every markup through this test:
| What happened | Markup time | The labor behind it |
|---|---|---|
| You installed exactly what was drawn | No redline needed | Base contract |
| Your own error or your own means-and-methods choice | Base scope — absorb it | Base contract |
| Field conflict you resolved without direction | Base scope in most contracts | Usually base — unless the conflict was a design error (feeder routed through a structural member, panel located in a required clear space) and you documented it before rerouting |
| Change directed by RFI response, ASI, bulletin, or field order | Base scope, but log it anyway | Billable — this is a change order |
| Owner or GC asks for as-builts beyond the spec (CAD deliverable, BIM model, O&M-linked record set) | Billable — different deliverable than the spec | Billable |
Read your spec section for the as-built requirement before you bid. It usually lives in Division 01 closeout procedures and sometimes again in 26 00 00 general electrical requirements. If it says "maintain a marked set on site and submit a record set at completion," you own the markup labor. If it says "submit record drawings in AutoCAD," you are being asked to pay for drafting nobody priced.
Why As-Built Hours Turn Into an Argument at Closeout
Because they are the only hours on the job with no daily paper behind them. Install labor has a timesheet with a job and an area on it. Redline labor gets done at the end of a shift and never gets its own line.
Then at closeout you ask for 34.5 hours in one lump, six months after the fact. From the GC's side it looks like a number someone made up, because from their side there is nothing to check it against.
There is a second reason, and it is the one with money attached. As-builts are almost always a condition of final payment and retainage release. Thin as-builts do not just cost you the markup hours — they hold the last 5-10% of the contract while somebody re-walks the building with a flashlight.
A 2004 NIST study (GCR 04-867) put the annual cost of inadequate interoperability in U.S. capital facilities at about $15.8 billion, of which roughly $10.6 billion fell on owners and operators — and about $9 billion of that during ongoing operations and maintenance, chasing information the record set should have carried. That cost is why owner spec sections keep tightening the record-drawing requirement — and why yours is probably stricter than the one you bid on five years ago.
How Do You Log As-Built and Redline Hours So They Hold Up?
Capture the hours and the description at the moment of the markup, not at closeout. The rule is that the person who picks up the red pen writes one line before they put it down.
That line needs six things. Nothing more, and skipping any of them is what turns it into "34.5 hrs — as-builts" six months later.
| Field | Why the reviewer needs it |
|---|---|
| Date and clock times | Ties the hours to a day the GC can cross-check against their own daily report |
| Who did it | Sets the rate and makes the entry answerable to a real person |
| Sheet number | Points at the artifact — the reviewer can pull E-201 and see the same red mark |
| What changed, in trade nouns | Circuits, panel, grid line, floor, wing. This is the part that ends the argument |
| Why it changed | RFI number, ASI, field order, or "field conflict, no direction" — this sorts billable from base |
| Hours | To the quarter hour, from the clock times, not from memory |
Here is the format. Rule a sheet with these columns, tape it inside the plan box lid, and it is one line on the days there is a markup at all — which on most jobs is not every day. The three sample rows below cover two weeks.
| Date | In–Out | Who | Sheet | What changed and why | Hrs | Bucket |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9/08 | 1:10p–3:40p | J. Alvarez | E-201 | Redlined panel schedule LP-2A and feeder reroute at grid C4 per RFI 31 | 2.5 | RFI 31 → CO pending |
| 9/11 | 2:55p–3:25p | D. Pike | E-301 | Marked up homeruns for circuits 12–18, second-floor east wing, rerouted around new duct drop | 0.5 | Base — field conflict |
| 9/15 | 6:30a–7:00a | J. Alvarez | E-201, E-202 | Relocated 14 receptacles, west corridor, per ASI 09 furniture plan revision | 0.5 | ASI 09 → CO 7 |
Three ways to carry this, all of them fine:
Paper on the plan box. Cheapest, works with no signal, and a foreman will actually do it. The weakness is transcription at billing time. A phone note or photo of the marked sheet, texted to the office daily. The photo timestamps itself, which is worth more than people think. Write the same six fields in the message body. Your timekeeping app, if the note field is any good. Some tools — FieldTimesheet among them — prompt for "what did you work on?" at clock-out and keep that free-text note attached to the entry, so the description rides along with the hours instead of living in a second system. That is the same capture the paper sheet does; pick whichever one your foreman will do five days a week.The method matters less than the discipline. A log nobody fills in is worse than no log, because it implies the hours were not worked.
What Do As-Built Hours Actually Cost? Worked Example
On a 22-sheet, 30-week job, as-built and redline labor runs about 34.5 hours — roughly $3,277.50 at an example bill rate of $95/hr. Those are example figures, not a claim about your job; run the arithmetic below with your own sheet count, duration, and rate.
| Input | Example value | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical sheets in the set | 22 | — |
| Job duration | 30 weeks | — |
| Foreman markup time | 45 min/week × 30 weeks | 22.5 |
| Closeout transfer to a clean set | 12 hours, one person | 12.0 |
| Total as-built labor | — | 34.5 |
| At an example bill rate of $95/hr | 34.5 × $95 | $3,277.50 |
Most of that 34.5 is base scope under a normal spec, and that is fine — it was in your bid, or it should have been. The point of the log is not to bill all of it.
The point is that the 6 or 8 hours inside it that trace to RFI 31 and ASI 09 are billable, and without the log you cannot tell them apart from the rest. Bid the base number, bill the directed number, and be able to show which is which.
Scope, Exclusion, and Change-Order Wording You Can Copy
Fix this at bid time and you will not fight it at closeout. Three pieces of language, all short.
Bid clarification — what you are including:Included: maintenance of one marked field set of electrical drawings on site and submission of one marked record set at project completion. Transfer of record markups to CAD, BIM, or any electronic format is excluded and available as a separate line item.Exclusion, if the spec is vague:
Excluded: as-built or record drawings in any electronic or drafted format; re-drafting of contract documents; as-built deliverables beyond one marked hard-copy set.Change-order line item, when a directed change generates markup labor:
Item 4 — Record drawing revisions resulting from RFI 31 feeder reroute at grid C4: 2.5 hrs @ $95.00/hr = $237.50. Labor backup attached (9/08, J. Alvarez, sheet E-201).
That last one works because the backup exists. A change-order line with an hours-and-rate breakdown and a dated field note behind it gives the reviewer something to sign. The same line with a lump number gives them a reason to call.
How to Turn the Log Into Backup the GC Will Approve
Attach the log rows to the pay app or change order, filtered to the hours you are actually billing. Do not send the whole log — send the three rows that support the number, with the sheet numbers on them.
The reviewer's job is to decide whether to sign. Give them a date, a name, a sheet, and one sentence of trade description, and the decision takes ten seconds instead of an email chain.
Two things make the packet stronger, and neither costs money. First, reference the RFI or ASI number in the same row, so your billing and their document log use the same identifier. Second, include the marked sheet itself — a phone photo of the red pen next to the line item is the most persuasive document in the whole submittal.
If you want a model to copy, the sample billing packet shows the same date/who/what/hours/rate structure on a full T&M job, and the T&M Billing Backup Kit has the blank labor backup sheet and change-order log you can print and use this week. The broader method is in T&M billing best practices.
Bid the Next Job With This Already Priced
Once you have run the log on one job, you have a real number for how many hours your as-built upkeep takes per sheet per month. That number goes into the next bid instead of being a guess.
Contractors who cannot answer "how many hours does redline upkeep cost us" carry it as overhead and hope. Contractors who logged it for one job carry it as a line and know.
Either way the crew is protected. The record is what stops a reviewer deciding, six months late, that work your people actually performed did not happen.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are as-built drawings included in an electrician's base contract?Usually yes for maintaining and submitting a marked hard-copy set — check Division 01 closeout procedures and your Division 26 general requirements. A CAD or BIM record deliverable is a different scope and should be priced separately or excluded in your bid.
Can I bill for the hours spent redlining drawings?The markup labor itself is normally base scope. The labor caused by the change you are redlining — an RFI response, ASI, bulletin, or field order — is billable, which is why every log row needs a reason code.
Who on the crew should do the redlining?Whoever installed the change, usually the foreman or the lead on that area, and on the day it happened. A PM reconstructing markups from memory at closeout is how both the drawing and the hours become unprovable.
How many hours should I carry for as-builts in a bid?Use your own history if you have it. As a starting point, track it for one job with the log format above — example arithmetic on a 22-sheet, 30-week job at 45 minutes of markup per week plus 12 hours of closeout transfer comes to 34.5 hours, but your sheet count and job length drive it.
What happens if my as-builts are incomplete at closeout?Final payment and retainage release commonly hang on accepted record drawings. Incomplete electrical as-builts also bring you back after the job for owner facility questions, unpaid.
Does a redline automatically mean a change order?No. A redline records what got installed; a change order records who directed the deviation and who pays. They overlap when the deviation came from an RFI, ASI, bulletin, or field direction — which is exactly what the reason column on the log captures.
What should the field note actually say?Trade nouns, a location, and a reason. "Redlined panel schedule LP-2A and feeder reroute at grid C4 per RFI 31" is checkable against a drawing. "As-built work" is not, and that difference is the whole reason these hours get disputed.
Do I need software to track as-built hours?No. A ruled sheet taped inside the plan box with date, times, name, sheet number, description, hours, and reason code is a complete system. Software helps when you are carrying several jobs and want the note to stay attached to the hour automatically, but the discipline is the part that matters.