Three quotes on a Fair Haven chimney: $2,400, $6,800 and $11,500. The owner assumed the middle one was the safe choice. In fact the cheap one was a partial repoint of the visible face, the expensive one included rebuilding the top eight courses and a new liner, and the middle one was somewhere in between with nothing written down. They were quotes for three different jobs.
Why quotes diverge
Price differences on masonry work come from five places, and only one of them is the contractor’s margin:
- Different scope. The most common by far. One includes the return wall, another does not.
- Different method. Hand-cut joints versus a grinder. Lime mortar versus bagged Type S. Full scaffold versus ladders.
- Different assumptions about what is behind the surface. One bidder assumed 20 brick replacements, another 100.
- Different access and protection. Sidewalk shed, permits, landscape protection.
- Margin and overhead. Real, but usually the smallest of the five.
Getting comparable numbers means removing the first four as variables before you ask for a price.
Write the scope yourself
This is the part owners skip and it is the whole solution. Write a page — a paragraph per elevation — saying what you want done, and hand the same page to every bidder:
- Which elevations and roughly what area.
- Whether you want full or spot repointing, and your target for percentage of joints.
- That the joints be cut to at least 2.5 times joint width by chisel or guided saw, no freehand grinders.
- That the mortar be matched to the existing and that you want the mix stated.
- An assumed number of unit replacements, with a unit rate requested for anything beyond it.
- That a mockup panel be provided before the crew proceeds.
- Access, protection, and cleanup expectations.
Those seven points are the same ones a proper proposal would contain anyway. Writing them yourself just means all three bidders are answering the same question rather than each answering their own.
What to ask on the visit
Three questions that reveal a lot in a short conversation:
“What mix will you use and how did you decide?” The answer separates people who think about the wall from people who use what is in the truck.
“What will you do if you find more deteriorated joint than expected?” You are testing whether they will price it or absorb it or argue about it.
“Can I see a job you did five or more years ago?” Recent work all looks good. Five-year-old work shows whether the mortar has held and whether the color matched as it weathered.
There are a few more of these worth working through before you sign anything, and they are collected in the questions that separate trades from sales.
Reading the numbers you get back
Once the scope is fixed, expect the three prices to land within roughly 30 percent of each other. A bid at half the others is either missing scope or planning to skim. A bid at double is either loading in contingency for something they saw and the others did not — worth asking about — or is not interested in the job.
Check licensing and insurance before signing, not after. Certificates of general liability and workers’ compensation should come directly from the insurer, not as a photocopy. The National Association of Home Builders at nahb.org has general guidance on vetting residential contractors that is worth ten minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Is it rude to show one contractor another’s price? It is common and generally counterproductive — it invites people to match a number rather than explain their method. Showing them the same written scope is more useful than showing them a competitor’s total.
How many quotes should I get? Three is the practical number. Two gives you no way to tell which is the outlier; more than four takes weeks and the marginal information is small. For specialist historic work you may find only two firms who genuinely do it, which is itself useful information.
What if all three quotes are much higher than I expected? Then the expectation was probably formed on the wrong job. Ask each bidder what could reasonably be phased to a later year — chimney and parapet first, sheltered elevations later — rather than looking for someone cheaper to do everything at once.