A fixed-bid estimate is the most misunderstood document in residential construction. Homeowners read it as a guarantee of the total. Some contractors write it as an opening offer. It is neither — it’s a scope with prices attached, and the quality of the estimate is exactly the quality of the scope.
Hard numbers vs. allowances
Every line on an estimate is one of two things. A hard number covers work whose cost the contractor controls: framing labor, drywall, rough plumbing. If it moves, that’s the contractor’s problem. An allowance covers a choice you haven’t made yet — tile, fixtures, appliances. It’s a placeholder, and it’s honest only if it’s realistic.
The classic trick is the lowball allowance: $4 a square foot for tile when nothing you’d put in your home costs under $9. The bid looks cheap, the contract gets signed, and the difference arrives later as a change order you can’t refuse.
What no estimate can promise
Nobody can price what’s inside a closed wall. Rot around a shower valve, aluminum wiring, a slab that was never level — these are discovered, not estimated. What a good contractor does is tell you the risk up front, carry a contingency line so the surprise has a budget, and price the discovery in writing before touching it.
The estimate is a scope with prices attached. Read the scope, not the total.
Three things to check before you sign
First, every allowance should name its number and its unit — “$9/sf tile allowance, 120 sf,” not “tile included.” Second, the exclusions section should exist; an estimate with no exclusions hasn’t been thought through. Third, the change-order policy belongs in the contract: who prices it, who signs it, and whether work pauses until both happen.
Bring us any competing estimate and we’ll walk you through it line by line — including where ours is higher, and why.