Making good and decoration
Repairs to leaves, frames and surrounding finishes leave marks. If decoration is excluded, you have a second trade and a second cost to arrange after completion.
Cost & Process Guide
Comparing Fire Door Quotations & Schedules Of Rates
If you are holding two or three quotations against the same fire door report and they are thousands of pounds apart, the usual explanation is not that one contractor is cheap. It is that they are quoting different work. This guide shows how to put them on a like-for-like basis before you award anything.
Put The Quotations On The Same Basis First
Comparison only means something once every quotation is answering the same question. The quickest way there is to rebuild each one against your own door list rather than reading each contractor's layout on its own terms.
Where a quotation has no door references at all, that in itself is useful information: it cannot be checked, varied or closed out door by door later.
- Is the work priced against door references you can identify on site?
- Does each door show its items, or only a single lump figure?
- Are repairs and genuine replacements separated?
- Which doors has each contractor assumed need replacement, and why?
- Are provisional or investigate-first items identified as such?
- Is the VAT basis stated, or left for you to infer?
The Exclusions That Change The Real Total
Frames, liners and fire-stopping
A quotation covering only the door leaf can leave an unsound frame or an unsealed perimeter untouched, which undermines the work that was paid for.
Ironmongery scope
Check which items are listed by name. Closers, hinges, latches, seals and signage quietly moving out of scope is a very common source of variation.
Access assumptions
Daytime access to occupied dwellings, no-access revisits, out-of-hours working and access equipment are real costs. Cheap quotations often assume the best case.
Records and close-out
Per-door records, photographs and a close-out pack are what prevent the same doors being re-surveyed next year. If they are not in scope, you are buying works without evidence.
Component standard
Components should be suitable for the doorset concerned, with supporting documentation. A cheaper like-for-nothing component is not a saving.
When A Schedule Of Rates Works Better Than A Quotation
For a single report with a finite list of defects, a priced schedule against door references is normally clearest. For continuing programmes across several buildings, a schedule of rates can be the better instrument: agreed prices for defined items, applied as works arise.
It only works, though, if the item definitions are tight. A rate for “renew closer” means little unless it states the closer type, whether adjustment and commissioning are included, and whether making good is covered.
- Each item defined by what is supplied, fitted, adjusted and made good
- Separate rates for communal-side and in-dwelling access where relevant
- Batch or minimum-visit assumptions stated explicitly
- A clear route for items that fall outside the schedule
- Review dates rather than open-ended rates
- The record output per door stated as part of the rate
Questions Worth Asking Before You Award
None of these are trick questions. A contractor who prices this work regularly will answer them without hesitation, and the answers usually explain the price gap entirely.
- Which doors are you proposing to replace rather than repair, and on what basis?
- What happens to the price if a frame turns out to be unsound once opened up?
- How are no-access doors handled and recorded, and what do they cost?
- What evidence do I receive per door on completion?
- Who arranges any formal inspection or re-inspection, and is it in this figure?
- What is excluded that I will have to arrange separately?
Related Pages
What the priced items themselves involve.
Frequently Asked Questions
Want A Quotation You Can Actually Compare?
Send us your report or door list and we will price it per door reference, with repairs and replacements separated and exclusions stated on the face of the quotation.