How to Compare Three Strata Painting Quotes

Your committee has three quotes. They range from $46,000 to $91,000 for what is supposedly the same building. Somebody is wrong, or the quotes are for different work — and it is almost always the second.

Here is how to find out, in the order worth asking.

1. What access has each quote assumed?

This single question explains more price variance than everything else combined. Scaffold, swing stage, elevated work platform and rope access have very different costs and very different suitability.

A quote that does not state its access method has left itself room to move. Ask each contractor in writing which method they have priced and what happens to the price if it turns out to be unsuitable.

2. Is the scope broken down by element and elevation?

A lump sum for "external painting" is not a scope. You need to see walls, eaves, soffits, windows, doors, balconies, balustrades, handrails, downpipes and any steelwork listed separately, ideally elevation by elevation.

When you have that from all three, the differences usually jump out. One has excluded balconies. One has excluded the rear elevation because it is not visible from the street. One has included the car park.

3. What preparation is included?

Ask specifically: what happens to cracking, to drummy render, to areas where the existing coating is failing? Is there an allowance, and if so how much and at what rate?

A quote with no preparation allowance on a fifteen-year-old building is not a cheaper quote. It is an incomplete one, and the difference will arrive as a variation.

4. What coating system, and to what film build?

"Two coats of premium acrylic" is marketing. The specification you want names the primer or sealer, the topcoat product, the number of coats and the dry film thickness. Manufacturer warranties depend on the system being applied as specified, so a vague specification usually means no effective warranty.

5. What is fixed and what is provisional?

Provisional sums are not a bad sign — on an older building they are the honest way to handle work nobody can measure from the ground. What matters is that they are shown separately, with the rate that will apply and a process for approving the spend before it happens.

A quote with no provisional sums on a building with visible defects has either absorbed the risk into a padded fixed price or is planning to raise variations.

6. Insurance, registration and safety documentation

Public liability insurance certificate, current registration, and a safe work method statement for the access method proposed. Ask for all three before you shortlist, not after you have chosen. A contractor who takes three weeks to produce an insurance certificate is telling you something about how the job will run.

7. What does the warranty actually cover, and what voids it?

A ten-year warranty that excludes coating failure caused by substrate movement, moisture ingress or inadequate preparation covers very little on a real building. Read what is excluded rather than the headline number.

Putting it in front of owners

Once you have the answers, build a single comparison table with the contractors as columns and these questions as rows. It will usually show that the quotes were never comparable, and it gives the committee something defensible to minute — which matters if an owner questions the decision later.

Most price gaps close substantially once the scopes are aligned. Where a gap survives that process, it is a real difference and you can make a real decision about it.