The buyer is on the permit: a Miami electrical supplier's playbook for trade permits

An electrical supplier's customer is the electrical contractor. The problem has always been knowing which contractor just won which job, before the gear is bought from someone else. In Miami-Dade that is public the day it happens. The sub pulls its own trade permit, and the county publishes it with the sub's name.

This is the method, with the timing we measured, and the list Groundbreak builds from it each morning.

The signal

An electrical trade permit under a master building permit. Florida licenses electricians at the state level, and the licensed contractor doing the work pulls the permit for it. So the name on the permit is the firm that will be buying switchgear, panels, wire, conduit and fixtures for that job.

It is not a bid list. The contract is already signed. That is the point: the sub has the job in hand and the material is not bought yet.

When it lands

We measured it on 325 Miami jobs that carry both a master permit and an electrical permit:

• Median: 12 days after the master building permit.
• Three quarters by day 74.
• 30% before the master, when the electrical work starts early (a temporary service, a site package).

So the electrical permit is early in the job. The rough-in comes after the structure, and the big gear orders follow the permit by weeks to months. A call in the first week after the permit is in front of every order on the job.

What the record tells you

• The sub. The electrical contractor's name, on nearly every trade permit.
• The phone. On about half of them.
• The job. Each trade permit is matched to its master permit and the project: the address, the GC, the size, the use and the units. A $128 million tower and a $180,000 house remodel both pull electrical permits; the project file tells you which this is.
• The other subs. The plumbing, mechanical and concrete permits on the same job, which tell you how far along it is.

Who to ask for

The purchasing manager or the project manager at the electrical contractor named on the permit. On a big job, ask for the PM on that address by name: it shows you are not cold calling the main line.

If the electrical contractor has a supplier for life, the second call is the GC on the master permit. They know who else is bidding the trades still open on the job.

What to say

Saw you pulled the electrical on [the address] on [the date]. We can quote the gear and wire off the drawings this week, with delivery to the site. Who is buying on it?

What Groundbreak shows in Miami, and what it does not

Shows: about 2,500 trade permits a month from Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami, each matched to its job, the sub named on nearly all and a phone on about half. The master permits with the GC and the architect, the notices of commencement, and the deeds and loans on the parcel.

Does not show: trade permits on most jobs permitted through a city's own system (Aventura, Doral, Miami Beach and others). Their master permits are in; their trade permits mostly are not. Broward and Palm Beach permits. A dollar value on many trade permits: the value is usually on the master permit, on the project file.

The Miami trade permit guide explains the full sequence on a tower. The list below is this playbook run on the last 30 days: the subs who just won electrical work, newest first.