# Spark Takeoff — Sales & Onboarding Guide

## Front-Page Product Description (use this on your website, App Store listing, or sales sheet)

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### **Spark Takeoff**
**Professional Electrical Estimating Software**

Spark Takeoff is a complete electrical estimating platform built for electrical contractors who bid commercial, light industrial, and residential work. It runs on any device — phone, tablet, or laptop — works offline on the job site, and follows the current NEC 2023 and California Title 24 energy code.

**What it does for you:**
- **Generate accurate bids in minutes, not hours.** Load calculations, wire sizing, conduit pricing, trenching, and service changeout estimates — all code-compliant, all in one app.
- **Walk the site, snap photos, dictate your notes.** No clipboard, no notebook. Your phone camera captures the job, your voice fills in the details, and the app builds the estimate from what it sees and hears.
- **Know your true cost before you quote.** A built-in overhead calculator factors in your wages, trucks, shop rent, insurance, and workers' comp to produce your real burdened hourly rate — so every bid covers your actual cost of doing business.
- **Catch what you missed before you send the bid.** A proactive RFI detector scans your job notes and plan photos for 15 common gaps — missing service voltage, no grounding spec, hazardous location requirements — and flags them before you commit to a number.
- **Hand work orders to your crew with a QR code.** Generate printable prefab work-order PDFs your shop floor can scan to see live assembly status. Every phase tracked, every quality check logged.
- **Generate a professional proposal PDF.** One click produces a clean, customer-facing bid document with your phase pricing and material list — no internal costs or profit margins visible to the customer.

**Built on authoritative references:**
Mike Holt's Illustrated Guide to the NEC · Tom Henry's Code Books · Soares Book on Grounding & Bonding · Stallcup's Electrical Illustrations · NECA Manual of Labor Units · NFPA 70E · RSMeans Electrical Cost Data

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## Step-by-Step: How to Use Spark Takeoff (training guide for new users)

### Phase 1: Set Up Your Business Profile (one-time)

**Step 1 — Open the app**
Open `spark_takeoff.html` in Chrome, Edge, or Safari on any device. No install required. To install as an app icon on your phone: Share → Add to Home Screen.

**Step 2 — Set your location**
Open **☰ Features → Project → Location**. Select your metro region (58 U.S. markets built in — from the Bay Area to Boston). Material prices, labor rates, and permit fees auto-adjust to your local market. Set your wage type: Private, State Prevailing Wage, Federal Davis-Bacon, or Union Scale.

**Step 3 — Calculate your true hourly rate**
Open **☰ Features → Business → Overhead / Rate**. Enter:
- Journeyman and apprentice wages
- Crew size, hours/week, weeks/year
- Payroll tax %, workers' comp %, health insurance, retirement
- Truck payments, fuel, maintenance
- Shop rent, office wages, software, phone
- General liability insurance, tools, advertising
- Your target profit % and contingency %

Click **Calculate**. The app computes your **burdened cost per hour** and the **billable rate** you must charge to hit your profit target. This rate feeds every estimating module — you never bid below your real cost.

### Phase 2: Walk the Site & Capture the Job

**Step 4 — Create a new job**
Open **☰ Features → Project → Job Setup**. Enter the job name, type (residential / commercial / light industrial), and address.

**Step 5 — Dictate your job notes (no typing)**
On the same Job Setup screen, click **🎙️ Voice-to-Text Notes**. Speak naturally — describe the scope, existing conditions, customer requirements. Your words are transcribed directly into the notes field. Example: *"Customer wants a 400 amp 208/120 three-phase service upgrade, replace the existing 200 amp panel, add a 100 amp sub-panel in the mechanical room, install a 40 amp EV charger, and bring it up to Title 24 lighting controls."*

**Step 6 — Take job site photos**
Open **☰ Features → Plans → Plans & Photos**. Click the file input and select photos from your phone camera or gallery. Each photo gets its own notes field — use it to label what you're looking at (e.g., "existing panel location," "mechanical room for sub-panel," "trench route along north wall"). Photos are stored in IndexedDB — gigabytes of capacity, no browser storage limits.

### Phase 3: Run the Engineering Calculations

**Step 7 — Size the service**
Open **☰ Features → Engineering → Load Calc**. Enter the square footage, number of small-appliance circuits, range, dryer, water heater, HVAC, EV charger, and motor loads. Click **Calculate**. The app applies NEC Article 220 demand factors and recommends a service size.

**Step 8 — Size the wire**
Open **☰ Features → Engineering → Wire Sizing**. Enter the load (amps), conductor type (copper or aluminum), temperature rating, voltage, phase, and run length. Click **Size Wire**. The app checks NEC Table 310.16 ampacity, computes voltage drop (NEC 210.19), and tells you the governing wire size plus the actual voltage drop percentage.

**Step 9 — Price the conduit**
Open **☰ Features → Engineering → Conduit Pricing**. Select the trade size and run length. The app shows installed $/ft for rigid (RMC), EMT, and PVC — broken down by material cost and labor — for both field-bent and prefab-fitting methods. Edit the material unit prices to match your Platt, Rexel, or Home Depot quotes.

**Step 10 — Estimate trenching (if applicable)**
Open **☰ Features → Estimate → Trenching**. Enter trench length, depth, width, soil type, backfill, and surface restoration. The app computes production hours, material costs, equipment, and total with profit applied.

**Step 11 — Service changeout estimate**
Open **☰ Features → Estimate → Service Changeout**. Select the new service size, existing conditions, number of circuits, AFCI/GFCI breakers needed, EV charger, solar interconnect, and surge protector. The app applies current NEC 2023 AFCI/GFCI requirements (210.12, 210.8) and California Title 24 EV-ready rules, then totals material + labor + permit + profit.

### Phase 4: Build the Material Takeoff & Phasing

**Step 12 — Build the material order**
Open **☰ Features → Estimate → Material Orders**. Add items from the built-in baseline price list (wire, conduit, breakers, boxes, devices, fittings). Set the quantity, unit price (auto-adjusted to your region), supplier (Platt / Rexel / Home Depot), and markup %. Export to CSV for ordering.

**Step 13 — Phase the job**
Open **☰ Features → Estimate → Phasing**. Break the job into phases (e.g., Rough-in, Service Changeout, Trim-out). Enter labor hours and material cost per phase. The app rolls up the total with your burdened rate applied.

### Phase 5: Quality Check & Generate the Bid

**Step 14 — Run the RFI detector**
Open **☰ Features → Plans → RFI Detector**. Click **Re-scan now**. The app scans your job notes, plan photo notes, job type, and location against 15 known red-flag patterns. It surfaces high/medium/low-severity issues — missing voltage spec, no grounding electrode system, hazardous location, Title 24 gaps, no panel capacity check for EV. One click converts each into a logged RFI.

**Step 15 — Generate an AI schematic (optional)**
Open **☰ Features → Drawings → AI Layout Generator**. Enter your OpenAI API key (stored locally only). Select a drawing type (one-line, panel schedule, conduit routing, control schematic, lighting plan). Optionally select a site photo for GPT-4o vision analysis. Click **Generate**. The AI reads your job context + photo and produces a print-ready SVG schematic.

**Step 16 — Mark up the drawing (optional)**
Open **☰ Features → Drawings → Touch Canvas**. Select the AI-generated SVG or a plan photo as the base layer. Use pen, line, arrow, text, highlighter, or eraser to mark conduit routes, panel locations, and annotations. Undo/redo, save to job record, export as PNG or SVG.

**Step 17 — Generate the customer proposal PDF**
Open **☰ Features → Project → Job Setup**. Click **📄 Generate Proposal PDF**. A new tab opens with a two-page proposal:
- **Page 1:** Your company header, job info, scope summary table (phase name, hours, bid price per phase), terms & conditions, signature lines
- **Page 2:** Detailed material line items with quantities and sell prices

No profit percentage or internal cost breakdown is visible to the customer — only clean bid prices. Click **Save as PDF** in the new tab to print or email.

### Phase 6: Shop Floor & Tracking (post-award)

**Step 18 — Build prefab assemblies**
Open **☰ Features → Shop → Prefab Workflow**. Create assemblies from templates (sub-panel, conduit rack, fixture whips, EV charger rough-in). Track each phase (cut, mount, wire, QA) with estimated vs. actual man-hours, quality check points, material specs, and completion dates.

**Step 19 — Print work orders with QR codes**
Click **🖨️ Print Work Order PDF** on any assembly. The PDF includes the phase breakdown, material specs, QC checkpoints, crew assignment, and a QR code. Scan it with a phone to open a live shop-floor status panel that auto-refreshes as the foreman updates phase progress.

**Step 20 — Track profitability & learn**
Open **☰ Features → Business → Win/Loss Learn**. Log every bid you win or lose with estimated vs. actual hours, why you lost (price, scope, competitor), and the result. The app computes your win rate, average estimate-vs-actual variance, and recommends pace/rate adjustments so your next bid fits your real crew speed — not a textbook average.

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## Full Feature List (31 modules, 7 categories)

| Category | Module | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| **Project** | Job Setup | Name, type, address, voice-to-text notes, export |
| | Location | 58 U.S. metro regions with auto-adjusted pricing |
| **Engineering** | Load Calculation | NEC 220 demand factors, service size recommendation |
| | Power Factor Correction | kVAR sizing, capacitor selection (NEC 460) |
| | Wire Sizing | NEC 310.16 ampacity + 210.19 voltage drop + circular mils |
| | Conduit Fill | NEC Chapter 9 Tables 4 & 5, fill % compliance |
| | Conduit Pricing | Rigid vs EMT vs PVC, bent vs prefab, installed $/ft |
| | Conduit Bending | Offset multipliers, 90° stub take-up, 3-point saddles |
| | Box Fill | NEC 314.16 conductor/device/clamp/ground volume |
| | Motor Calculator | NEC 430.250 FLC, overload, feeder, disconnect sizing |
| | Transformer Sizing | kVA ↔ amps, primary/secondary currents, std sizes |
| | Grounding Sizing | NEC 250.66 GEC + 250.122 EGC conductor sizing |
| **Estimate** | Trenching | Production rates, soil/backfill/restore, full cost + profit |
| | Service Changeout | AFCI/GFCI per NEC 2023, Title 24 EV-ready, full estimate |
| | Material Orders | Takeoff builder, Platt/Rexel/Home Depot, CSV export |
| | Phasing | Phase the job with labor + material roll-up totals |
| **Plans** | Plans & Photos | Upload job site photos, annotate, IndexedDB storage |
| | RFIs / As-Builts | Log RFIs with discipline/status, record as-built changes |
| | RFI Detector | 15-rule proactive scanner, surfaces gaps before you bid |
| **Drawings** | AI Drawings | Prompt builder for custom schematics |
| | AI Layout Generator | GPT-4o vision reads photos + job context → SVG schematic |
| | AIGEN Metrics | Reliability dashboard, alert states, SMS history |
| | Touch Canvas | Finger/stylus markup, 8 tools, undo/redo, PNG/SVG export |
| **Shop** | Prefab Workflow | Assembly templates, phase tracking, QC, waste, QR work orders |
| **Business** | Overhead / Rate | True burdened hourly rate from all business costs |
| | Labor Matrix | Shift × working-condition multipliers (OT/emergency/manhole) |
| | Labor Units | NECA MLU baselines, crew pace adjustment, per-task cost |
| | Win/Loss Learn | Bid tracking, win rate, estimate-vs-actual variance |
| | Rebate Reconciliation | Scrap-yard credit tracking, monthly reconciliation |
| | Price History | Cross-job material price trends + 30-day forecast charts |
| | Code Library | References: Mike Holt, Tom Henry, Soares, Stallcup, NECA, NFPA 70E |

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## System Requirements

- **Any modern browser:** Chrome, Edge, or Safari (for voice-to-text and PWA install)
- **Phone, tablet, or laptop** — works on all three
- **No internet required** after first load (IndexedDB + service worker)
- **Optional cloud sync** via Firebase or Supabase (for cross-device data)
- **Optional AI schematics** via OpenAI API key (stored locally only)
- **No software installation** — open the HTML file and go