How to read three contractor quotes when your list isn't on any of them
You did the sensible thing. You got three quotes. Now they're on the table, and they're three different numbers for what's supposed to be the same job, and the only thing you know for sure is which one is cheapest.
Here's how to read them so the number at the bottom stops being the only thing you can compare. It takes an hour and your list of what the house has to do.
The number at the bottom is the least useful line
Three quotes for the same job are almost never for the same job. Each contractor priced what they understood you to want, plus what they always include, minus what they assume somebody else is doing. The cheapest one is usually the one that left the most out, and everything left out comes back later as a change order, at a price nobody competed for.
On my own building I've had two quotes for the same fence, one at $5,506 and one at $1,250. The numbers on their own told me nothing. What told me something was going line by line to find out what each one thought the job was.
Start with your list, not their quotes
Before you open the quotes, write down what the house has to do when the work is done. Not products. Requirements, in your own words:
Shower with no step, and somewhere to sit in it.
Wood behind the bathroom walls, wherever a grab bar might go.
Bathroom and bedroom doors 36 inches.
Light over the shower, switch at the door.
One section of kitchen counter at seated height, nothing under it.
Whatever yours are. Five to ten lines. If you've been through the course, this is your Requirements Page. If you haven't, it's an hour with a notepad and the rooms you avoid.
Put each quote next to the list
Now make a table. Your requirements down the left. One column per quote. For each requirement and each quote, one of three marks:
Priced. You can find the line and the number.
Missing. It isn't there.
Unclear. Something's there ("bathroom fixtures, allowance $2,400") but you can't tell whether it covers what you asked for.
Do the whole table before you draw any conclusions. It usually takes twenty minutes, and it changes which quote looks expensive.
What the table tells you
A higher quote where every line is Priced is often the cheaper project, because the seven things Missing from the low quote don't disappear. They come back once the walls are open, one at a time, priced by the one contractor who's already in your house.
A quote with a lot of Unclear lines isn't a bad quote. It's an unfinished one. Every Unclear becomes a question.
The question stops being "is this expensive" and becomes "is this quote for the project I asked for."
The questions to ask before you sign
Send each contractor the lines that came back Missing or Unclear, and ask, in writing:
"Is [requirement] included in this price? If yes, where? If no, what would it add?"
"What does the allowance for [item] actually cover, and what happens if the thing I choose costs more?"
"What in this quote are you assuming somebody else is doing?" (Electrical, plumbing, tile, the permit. This is where the gaps hide.)
"If I ask for [requirement] after the work starts, what does it cost and what does it delay?"
That last one is the honest test. A contractor who gives you a clear number for a change before you've signed is telling you what change orders will cost after. One who won't is telling you something too.
Then read your requirements again
Once the quotes are answered and one is chosen, go back to your list and read it against the quote you're about to sign. Every line should be Priced. If one isn't, it isn't in the project, whatever was said on the phone.
This is also the moment to look at what you wrote down at the start about which rooms are hard, and check which of those lines will stop being true in the finished room. That's the whole point. A quote that's cheaper and doesn't change the hard part of your day isn't cheaper.
What I don't do
I don't tell you which contractor to hire, and I don't price work. What I give you is the list to hold the quotes against, and the questions. The rest is between you and the people you're paying, and it goes better when the list exists.
If you don't have the list yet, the free guide, The Decisions Your Renovation Makes Without You, has a one-page version for your project team, four lines long, that you can hand over with the request for quotes. Short, large print. Sign up and the download is yours.
