Why renovation quotes vary so much, and how to compare them properly

You ask three contractors for a price on the same basement. One comes back at a number that seems too good and one at a number that seems too high, and there is no obvious way to tell which is which. This happens constantly, and it is not usually because one contractor is greedy.

The quotes are rarely for the same job

The single biggest cause of a big spread is that the three of us priced different work. Not dishonestly. We each made assumptions about the parts you did not specify, and those assumptions are where the money is.

• Is the permit and the drawing work included, or is that yours to arrange?
• Whose allowance is in there for flooring, tile, lighting and hardware, and is it realistic for what you actually want?
• Is the electrical by a licensed contractor with an ESA certificate, or by whoever is on site?
• Is disposal, dust protection, and final cleanup priced, or does the debris pile become your problem?
• Is the egress window, the extra beam, or the drainage correction in the number, or listed as an exclusion on page three?

Two of those on their own can account for a five-figure gap on a basement.

Allowances are where budgets quietly break

An allowance is a placeholder for something you have not chosen yet. A quote might carry an allowance for tile at a certain rate per square foot. If the tile you fall in love with is triple that, the quote was never wrong, it just was not your project.

What the low quote is often missing

Sometimes a low quote is simply a smaller operation with lower overhead, and that is a fair reason. Often, though, it is one of these.

• No permit, which means the work is not inspected and shows up later at sale or refinance.
• No WSIB coverage or liability insurance, which puts the risk of an injury on your property on you.
• Subcontracted crews the contractor has never worked with, chosen on price the week the job starts.
• A schedule that assumes nothing goes wrong, so the first surprise becomes a change order.

Ask for the WSIB clearance certificate and the liability insurance certificate. Any legitimate contractor can produce both within a day and will not be offended that you asked.

What a good quote looks like

It should be readable by somebody who does not build for a living. Scope described line by line, what is included, what is explicitly excluded, allowances stated with numbers, a payment schedule tied to stages of work rather than dates, and a realistic timeline.

A quote you cannot understand is not a quote. It is a number with paragraphs around it.

Questions worth asking all three

• Who is actually on site every day, and will I meet them before the job starts?
• What happens to the schedule and the price if you open a wall and find something unexpected?
• How do you handle changes I ask for mid-project, and how do I approve them?
• Can I see a project you finished two or three years ago, rather than last month?

That last one matters more than it looks. Anything looks good the week it is finished. What you want to know is how it looks after three winters.

For what it is worth, the person who quotes your project here is the person building it, and we would rather lose a job to a clearer conversation than win one on a number that was never going to hold.