Getting a fair price from a Contractor for your project is important. But what if the price you get seems almost too good to be true? A construction industry expert once observed that “construction horror stories often start with a great price.” Why is that?

Unlike when purchasing mass-produced, brand-name products, which are identical to each other regardless of the price you pay, comparing the prices of one construction firm to another is rarely the best indicator of the value you will receive.

There are many factors that affect the Contractor’s costs when pricing a project. In order to present you with a lower price, they can estimate based on using lower quality lumber, cabinets, flooring, windows, doors, plumbing fixtures and other materials. You won’t know this until a few years after the project is finished and things start to warp, fade, crack, jam, leak or squeak. They can skimp on things like the thickness of the sub flooring, the actual amount of insulation they use, or the quality of the light fixtures they use. They can use ‘allowances’ for products you will have to pick out after you sign the contract that are based on the lowest cost products instead of products in line with the quality of your home or the quality you are expecting the re-modeler to provide. When you select the type of product you expected to be covered, you could find out that the allowance only covers a small part of what you select and you will have to pay extra for what you thought was already included in the price.