Most homeowners we meet have two or three quotes on the table, and the spread between them is wide enough to be confusing. One number is thousands of dollars under the others, and there is no obvious reason why.
There usually is a reason. It is just not on the page.
A siding quote is a description of a scope of work. When the price is very different, the scope is very different. The trick is knowing which line items go missing, because a short quote does not look suspicious. It looks simple.
Why two quotes for the same house can be thousands apart
Material is the part everyone focuses on, and it is the part that matters least to the spread. Two crews pricing the same product from the same supplier are within a few percent of each other on material.
The gap comes from labour hours and from the parts of the job that are invisible when it is done. Every hour spent flashing a window properly is an hour that does not show up in the finished photos. Every sheet of rotten sheathing replaced is money the homeowner never sees again. A crew that wants the lowest number on your kitchen table gets there by leaving those hours out, either from the quote or from the job.
A full wall wrapped and taped before a single panel goes on. This is the work you never see again.
The line items that quietly go missing
The water resistive barrier
The layer behind your siding is what actually keeps water out of the wall. Done right it is lapped in the correct direction and taped at the seams so water that gets past the siding runs down and back out.
Ask whether the quote includes a new barrier over the whole wall, or whether the crew is planning to reuse whatever is already there. On an older Winnipeg home, whatever is already there is often building paper that has been perforated by forty years of nails.
Flashing
Head flashing over windows and doors. Flashing where a wall meets a roof. Flashing at deck ledgers, at hose bibs, at dryer vents, at every place something goes through the wall. Kick out flashing where a roof edge meets a sidewall, which is one of the most common leak points on a house and one of the most commonly skipped.
Flashing is cheap in material and expensive in time. That is exactly what makes it the first thing to disappear.
Trim, corners, and channel work
Corners, J-channel, window and door surrounds, and transitions between materials. A quote that prices siding by the square foot and says nothing about trim is leaving out a real cost and, more importantly, leaving the door open to using the cheapest possible trim to protect the margin.
Trim is also where a job looks either sharp or amateur. It is the first thing your neighbours notice.
Trim is the first thing your neighbours notice and the last thing a rushed crew gets right.
Soffit, fascia, and eavestrough
These often sit on a separate page or get skipped entirely. If your roofline is original and your siding is being replaced, doing them separately later means paying twice for access and staging, and it means a brand new wall sitting under a system that may already be dumping water on it.
Sheathing repairs
Watch for the phrase "additional cost if rot is found." That is not automatically a red flag. Nobody can see through a wall, and an honest contractor cannot promise a fixed price on damage that has not been uncovered yet.
What matters is whether the quote tells you the rate. A quote that says sheathing replacement is billed at a set price per sheet, documented with photos before we cover it, is honest. A quote that says nothing and hands you a surprise invoice later is not.
Insulation and the chance you only get once
When the siding is off, the wall is open. That is the only moment in your home’s life when adding exterior insulation is straightforward. It is worth asking what it would cost while you are already there, even if you decide against it.
Disposal, cleanup, and protecting your property
Old siding, trim, and a very large volume of nails have to go somewhere. Bin rental and dump fees are real money. So is the labour of running a magnet over your lawn and driveway at the end of every day, and covering your garden and A/C unit while a wall comes down.
If the quote does not mention disposal or cleanup, ask. Nails in a lawn find bike tires and bare feet.
Labour that is actually on your site
Some numbers are low because the crew intends to be on your house for four days instead of eight. Faster is not automatically worse, but on siding, speed and detail trade directly against each other. Fastener tension, expansion gaps, and clean cuts around openings all cost minutes per panel.
Questions worth asking before you sign
Bring this list to every quote, including ours.
- Is this a full tear-off, or are you siding over what is there?
- What water resistive barrier are you installing, and is it taped?
- Where exactly will you be flashing, and does that include kick out flashing at roof to wall junctions?
- What trim and corner product is included, and what colour?
- If you find rot, what is the rate, and will you photograph it before covering it?
- Are soffit, fascia, and eavestrough in this price or not?
- Who is on site day to day, and is the person who quoted the job one of them?
- Are disposal and daily cleanup included?
- What is the manufacturer warranty on the product, and what is your warranty on the labour?
- Are you insured and covered under Workers Compensation, and can I see it?
The last one is not a formality. If someone gets hurt on your property working uninsured, that becomes your problem.
What a quote from us looks like
We write the scope out. Tear-off, barrier, flashing locations, trim, material and colour, roofline work if it is included, disposal, and the rate for sheathing if we find damage. If we are not doing something, it says so, so nothing is a surprise later.
We are a small operation. Vlad quotes the job and Vlad is on the job. There is no sales rep handing your house off to a crew that has never met you.
We are usually not the lowest number you will get. We would rather explain a fair price up front than explain a cheap one two winters later.
Get a real number for your house
We will walk your exterior with you, tell you what actually needs doing, and put the whole scope in writing so you can compare it honestly against anything else on your table.
