Quote check
Is your bathroom quote reasonable?
- 6Lines it reads against
- 6Scopes it looks for
What this does
It reads a bathroom quote a line at a time — tiles, adhesive, grout, boards, membrane, and whatever else it lists — and sets each quantity beside one worked out from your own room. Every figure comes from a calculator published on this site, which you can open and reproduce.
The list that matters more
It also names what a bathroom job normally includes that your quote never mentions. That list is usually the more useful one: an extra box of tiles costs a little, and an omission is discovered mid-job, when you have no negotiating position left.
It never checks prices
It does not check prices, and it never will. This site publishes none. Installed prices vary by a factor of two between markets and move with the season, the access and the specification, so a figure for what the work “should” cost would leave you confident in a number nobody can defend. A quantity against a room is checkable. A price against a market is not.
Your quote
The bathroom quote you were given
Paste from an email, or open or drop a PDF, Excel, CSV or text file, or a photo of the quote. Amounts of money are taken out before anything is read — this page compares quantities, never prices.
Nothing you paste or open leaves this device.
The reading
What the quote says, against the job
Bathroom · a room 8 by 6 ft, tiled to 7 fta room 2.4 by 1.8 m, tiled to 2.1 m
What it leaves out
Every line the job needs that nothing on the quote reads as, with the quantity your measurements produce.
What it adds
Lines this job's takeoff does not measure — labour, removal, hire, fees, anything else — each named for what it is.
What sits outside the range
Quantities above or below the computed range, by how much, in the quote's unit or converted and shown.
What to ask
One list of questions, in the quote's order, ready to copy and send. Questions, never a verdict.
Paste the quote above, or add its lines one at a time. The reading appears here as each line is read.
What it looks for
What a bathroom quote should mention
The reading looks for each of these in the quote's own words and names any it cannot find. It matches words, not what they turn out to cover, so a scope it finds is a good sign rather than a guarantee.
Waste removal
A bathroom strip-out fills more than people expect, and broken tile and old sanitaryware are heavy rather than bulky. Whether it is in the price, and who moves it out of the house, is worth establishing before the first day.
Protecting the rest of the house
Everything that comes out of a bathroom travels through the rest of the house, usually down a stair. Floor protection and dust sheeting on the route are a small line that is either in the price or is not.
Tanking or a waterproof membrane
Behind a shower this is the layer that decides whether water reaches the structure. It sits under the tiling, so it is invisible afterwards and cannot be added later without taking the tiling off.
Making good or decorating
Taking out a bathroom leaves marks where the old suite was, and the wall above the tiling usually needs filling and painting. It lands at the very end of the job, which is the worst moment to discover it was not included.
Ventilation
A new bathroom without adequate extraction is where condensation and mould start, and in many markets the extract rate is required rather than optional. The duct route matters as much as the fan.
Isolating the water
A bathroom cannot be stripped without shutting the water off, and in an older house the existing isolation often turns out not to work. It is a small item that occasionally becomes the first day's whole problem.
What a check like this cannot see
- It does not know your prices, your market, or what the work should cost.
- It does not know your building — the access, the condition of what is behind the wall, or what has to happen before any of this can start.
- It cannot check a lump sum, because there is no quantity in one.
- A quantity outside the range is not evidence of anything, and a line read as missing may be priced under another name. Each is a reason to ask a question.
- A quote that covers more than another quote is not dearer for the same work. Two quotes are not comparable until their scopes are.
- It is not advice, and it is no substitute for a second quote.
How it works
Each line calls a calculator already published here, with inputs derived from the dimensions you entered. The range is that same calculator run twice, at each end of the one input that is a legitimate choice rather than a fact — a notch size, a joint width, a lay pattern, a coverage rate. The reading names which input it varied, so the width of every range is something you can disagree with rather than a hedge.
Nothing is computed here that is not computed on the calculator’s own page. Open the link under any line, enter the same numbers, and you will get the same answer.
More quote checks
A check for every job the site takes off
Board, tile, roof, deck or drive: each has its own page, worked out from the same calculators as its takeoff.
Quantities, never prices
Every figure is a quantity your own measurements decide.
The working, one click away
Each line links to the calculator that produced it.
Nothing leaves this device
There is no account and no server to send a quote to.
Frequently asked questions
- A quantity is above the range. Does that mean something is off?
- No. It means the figure sits outside what this room's dimensions produce on the assumptions shown, and there are several ordinary reasons for that: a larger tile, a diagonal lay, a cut-up room, a second board layer for sound, or an area that the dimensions you entered do not describe. The useful next step is the question the reading prints for that line.
- Why will you not tell me what it should cost?
- Because we would be guessing and you would believe us. Installed prices vary by a factor of two between markets and move with the season, the access and the specification. A mistaken “fair price” is worse than none at all: it gives you confidence in a number that cannot be defended in the conversation it was meant to help.
- Should I show this to my builder?
- If it helps the conversation, yes — it is written so that it can be. Every line gives the inputs behind its range and at least one ordinary reason a real figure might differ, and nothing on the page characterises anybody. It is a list of questions, and a good tradesman answers questions.
- Does anything I type or paste here leave my device?
- No. Every figure on this page is computed in your browser, and this site has no account, no analytics and no server to send a quote to. That matters more here than elsewhere, because a quote is a commercial document belonging to somebody else as much as to you.