Flooring and Tile Quote Review ($99): A Builder Puts Your Flooring or Shower Quotes on One Grid and Tells You Which to Sign

Flooring & TileIndependent review

Flooring and Tile Quote Review: A Builder Reads Your Quotes Against Your Rooms Before You Sign

Up to three quotes and your photos, on one grid, with a plain answer. No installer behind it, no commission on who you hire.

Three quotes for the main floor: $9,800, $13,500 and $17,200. One says “engineered hardwood”; one names the brand and the 3 mm wear layer; one says “as per sample”. One includes the tearout. One says “subfloor prep extra if required”, which is where the $3,000 surprise lives. One did not mention the stairs at all. You cannot tell which is which from the kitchen table, and the fellow who wrote the cheap one is not going to explain. I will. For $99 the quotes go on the twelve-line grid, the areas get checked, the blanks get priced, and you get a written answer on which one to sign and what to ask the others.

Reviews are done by a Tarion-registered Ontario builder with 300-plus houses behind him, every one of them floored and tiled by trades he hired and inspected. Turnaround three business days.

What you get

Flooring and Tile Quote Review
$99

Up to three quotes, plus your photos. HST added at checkout.

  • Every quote put on the same twelve-line grid, side by side
  • The square footage checked against your rooms, with waste, and the stairs counted
  • The product each one actually named: brand, line, thickness, wear layer, or “flooring” and nothing else
  • What each one leaves out, in dollars: tearout, levelling, moisture test, membrane, baseboard, transitions, bin
  • For showers: whether a waterproofing system is named, and whether a flood test is promised
  • The price per square foot checked against Ontario October 2026 rates
  • A plain answer: sign this one, go back to that one with these questions, or walk
Order the quote review
Flooring and Tile Takeoff
$249

One house, addition or basement, from your plans. HST added at checkout.

  • Every room measured off the drawings, with the flooring assigned to each and waste by layout
  • Stairs, landings and transitions counted; baseboard footage by room
  • Subfloor and substrate notes: slab or plywood, where a membrane, levelling or moisture test is needed, heated-slab rooms flagged with the surface limit
  • Tile schedule: floor, shower pan, walls, niches, with the waterproofing system specified
  • A budget at builder, mid and premium grade at October 2026 Ontario rates, per material and per square foot of floor
  • The twelve-line scope to send to three installers so the quotes come back comparable
  • The allowance check, if there is a builder’s contract to hold it against
Order the takeoff

Already have quotes? Read what the review covers.

If your house is in Simcoe County, Muskoka or the Georgian Bay area and the job ends up going to a contractor we introduce, the review fee comes off the introduction. More than three quotes, or whole-house packages over 3,000 sq ft with several bathrooms, are quoted separately; email first.

How it works

  1. Order. Pay by card on the Stripe page. HST is added at checkout; you get an emailed receipt and a page telling you exactly what to send.
  2. Send the paper and the pictures. Reply to the receipt email with the quotes as PDFs or clear phone photos, your room list (the one the calculator writes is ideal), and photos of the floors as they are now, plus any soft spot, hump or stain you have noticed.
  3. Get the answer. Within three business days: the grid, the area check, the blanks priced, the product check, the per-square-foot check, and the recommendation with the questions to send back.
  4. Use it. Send the questions, get the revised quotes, sign the right one. Most weeks the cheap quote comes back $2,500 higher once the tearout and the levelling are in, the dear one turns out to be premium material you did not ask for, and the middle one wins.

What it is not

It is not a site inspection. Nobody measures your house or tests your slab for $99; the quotes, your room list and your photos are what gets read. If the photos show something that needs a person in the room (a floor that has heaved, a slab with white powder on it, a shower that is already leaking), it says so and says who to call first. It is not a binding price, a specification for the installer, or a recommendation of a company. It is a builder’s reading of the paper you already have, which is the thing nobody else will give you.

What gets found, most weeks

  • A square footage with no waste in it, so the material is 10% short and the “extras” invoice is already written.
  • “Engineered hardwood” with no brand, thickness or wear layer, beside a quote that named a 4 mm sawn face at the same price.
  • “Subfloor prep as required” with no unit rate, on a 1970s house with carpet over who-knows-what.
  • A floating floor quoted for a basement slab with no moisture test and no vapour retarder on the page.
  • A tiled shower quote that says “waterproofed” and names no system, no drain type and no flood test.
  • Fourteen stairs, baseboard and nine transitions each missing from a different quote.
  • Photos of cupped boards sent by a homeowner about to blame the installer, in a house with no humidifier and a heated slab set to the air thermostat.

Before you order, the free version

The twelve-line grid is on the site and you can fill it in yourself. The subfloor checklist and the shower checklist tell you what should be on the page. If the grid gives you a clear answer, keep the $99. If two quotes are both complete and $4,000 apart and you cannot see why, that is what the review is for.

Questions people ask

Can you review a quote for just a shower, or just stairs?

Yes. Any combination of flooring, tile, shower and stair quotes, up to three documents. A single quote on its own gets the same grid and the questions to send back.

Will you tell me which contractor to use?

I will tell you which quote is the one to sign, and why, and what to ask before you do. I do not recommend companies and I do not take a commission.

What if the floor is already in and something is wrong?

Send the photos and the invoices. The review tells you which defects are the installer’s, which are the product’s and which are the house (humidity, moisture, a slab that was not ready), with the standard behind each, which is what you need before you write to anyone. Warranty problems.

Is the fee refundable?

If I cannot read what you send (illegible photos, a quote with no scope at all), I will say so before starting and refund it. Once the review is written, it is not.

Three pieces of paper, one answer

The grid, the area check and the questions, in three business days, for $99. Then sign the right one.

Order the quote review, $99Back to the section