Three quotes for the same bathroom came back at $19,000, $31,000 and $44,000. The homeowner assumed the middle one was safest. Here is what they were actually comparing — and the five line items that explain almost every gap.

Collecting three quotes is good advice. Comparing them by total is not. A renovation estimate is a description of scope wearing a price tag, and two contractors looking at the same room routinely describe very different projects.

You cannot evaluate that by looking at the bottom line. You evaluate it by looking at what each one promised to do.

LINE ITEM 1: ALLOWANCES

An allowance is a placeholder for something you have not chosen yet — tile, fixtures, cabinetry, counters. It is also the easiest place in an estimate to hide money.

If one contractor allows a realistic per-square-foot figure for tile and another allows half that, the second quote is cheaper on paper and identical in reality — because you will still buy the tile you actually want, and the difference will arrive as a change order.

• Ask what each allowance buys, in a real showroom, today
• Ask whether labour for the selected material is inside or outside the allowance
• Ask to go look. An afternoon at a tile showroom tells you more about an allowance than any conversation will

Lowball allowances are the single most common reason a cheap quote stops being cheap.

LINE ITEM 2: WHAT IS BEHIND THE WALL

This is the honest difference between most estimates, and it is almost never spelled out clearly.

One contractor assumes the existing plumbing, wiring and framing are fine and prices accordingly. Another assumes a house of that age will need a valve replaced, a circuit added and some subfloor repaired — and prices that in.

The second quote is higher and more likely to be the final number. The first is lower and more likely to generate change orders. Ask each one directly: “What have you assumed about what is behind the wall, and what happens if you are wrong?”

LINE ITEM 3: PERMITS

Permits cost money and time, and leaving them out makes a quote look better. Some contractors will tell you a permit is unnecessary for work that plainly requires one.

Unpermitted work does not stay invisible. It surfaces when you sell, as square footage that cannot be counted or work an inspector requires to be opened back up. The homeowner carries that risk, not the contractor.

LINE ITEM 4: PREP AND PROTECTION

Dust barriers, floor protection, daily cleanup, debris removal and disposal, subfloor preparation, waterproofing. None of these are visible in the finished room, and all of them are labour.

A quote that excludes them is cheaper for exactly that reason. Waterproofing in particular is not a finish — it is the thing determining whether the bathroom lasts twenty years or five.

LINE ITEM 5: WHO IS ACTUALLY RUNNING IT

Project management is real work and a real cost. On the cheapest quotes it is often simply absent — which means the coordination still has to happen, and it happens to you.

Ask: who schedules the trades, who is on site day to day, who do you call when something is wrong, and how often will you hear from them without having to ask?

The cheapest estimate is usually the one that asked you the fewest questions. That is not a coincidence.

THE QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING EVERY CONTRACTOR

• Is this a line-item estimate or a single total? Ask for line items.
• What are the allowances, and what do they buy in a showroom today?
• Are permits included, and will you pull them?
• What have you assumed about plumbing, electrical and framing condition?
• What is your change-order process, and will I approve pricing before work proceeds?
• Who is my point of contact, and how often will I hear from you?
• Can I see work you have completed and speak to those clients?
• Are you licensed and insured, and can I see current certificates?

That last one matters more than homeowners think. If a contractor hesitates at any of these, you have learned something useful for the price of asking.

ON THE HIGHEST QUOTE

Expensive is not automatically thorough. Some quotes are high because the contractor is busy and does not especially want the work.

The test is the same in both directions: does the scope justify the number? A high quote with a detailed, specific, well-reasoned scope is a real price. A high quote with a one-line description is a guess.

THE SHORT VERSION

Put the three estimates side by side and go line by line. Where one is missing something another includes, write it down. Then ask the cheapest bidder to explain the differences.

Most of the time the quotes converge once the scope is equalised. When they do not, you have found a genuine difference in what is being proposed — which is exactly the thing you were trying to find out.

SERVING GRAYSON AND THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES

We remodel bathrooms across Gwinnett County — Lawrenceville, Loganville, Snellville, Dacula and Lilburn — along with Monroe, Bethlehem, Winder, Stone Mountain, Tucker, Lithonia, Duluth and Conyers, roughly 20 miles around our Gwinnett County studio.