Getting quotes · High risk
Are all builders pricing the same thing?
Write one scope document and send exactly that to every builder.
- When it lands
- Before you invite a single quote.
- What it costs to get wrong
- Without a common scope, the cheapest quote is usually the one that left the most out — and you find out on site.
Three quotes are only useful if they price the same job. Most of the time they do not, and the differences that look like value are really differences in what has been included.
One document, issued identically
Your tender pack should be the same for every builder: the drawings, a written specification, a schedule of allowances, and the programme constraints. Not a conversation for one, an email for another and a set of plans for a third.
A homeowner did exactly that — plans to one, a site chat with a second, an emailed summary to the third. Quotes came back at £62,000, £78,000 and £94,000. They were not three prices for one job; they were three different jobs, and the comparison was meaningless.
Name the allowances yourself
Kitchens, sanitaryware, tiling, flooring, lighting and ironmongery are the usual suspects. If you do not state a figure, each builder invents one, and the cheapest quote is often simply the one that assumed the cheapest kitchen.
Set an allowance — say £12,000 supply-only for the kitchen — and require everyone to price against it. Now the differences you see are differences in labour, preliminaries and margin, which is exactly what you wanted to compare.
Answer questions to everybody
When one builder asks a good question, circulate the answer to all of them. It keeps the tender fair, keeps the comparison valid, and shows the builders you are running an organised process — which affects the quality of the people willing to price for you.
Say what is excluded
Explicit exclusions are as useful as inclusions. If the tender pack says scaffolding, skips, temporary welfare and making good decorations are included, nobody can present them later as extras.
Why this one matters
Comparing quotes is only possible when the question was identical. This single document is the highest-value hour you will spend on the whole project.
Do this week
- Assemble one tender pack: drawings, specification, allowances.
- Write your allowance figures down before issuing.
- Send the identical pack to every builder on the same day.
The realistic choices
Scope written by you
Free. Use the Clinic's checklist to avoid the usual gaps.
Specification by your designer
Best accuracy. Usually already inside a technical fee.
Full tender package
For larger projects with a contract administrator.
What good looks like
- One document, one date, sent to every builder
- Fittings and finishes given as allowances with actual figures
Questions worth asking
- What is specifically excluded?
- Which items are provisional sums, and how were they estimated?
From real projects
Three quotes, three different jobs
A homeowner sent one builder the plans, described the job to another on site, and emailed a third a summary. The quotes came in at £62,000, £78,000 and £94,000. The cheapest had excluded all electrics and the kitchen; the dearest had allowed for underfloor heating nobody had asked for.
The lesson: A spread that wide is almost never about builders' margins. It is about three different scopes.
Putting it into practice
What this decision should leave behind
The steps to work through, the paperwork worth keeping and the questions to send your builder today.
- · Build one scope document
- · Name the allowances
- · Issue identically to every builder
- · Template: Tender invitation letter
- · Paperwork: Tender pack: drawings, specification, allowances
- · Paperwork: Written record of tender queries and answers
Next decision
Which builder do you appoint?