Exterior Quote Review ($99): A Builder Puts Your Siding, Stucco, Stone or Eavestrough Quotes on One Grid and Tells You Which to Sign

Exterior FinishesIndependent review

Exterior Quote Review: A Builder Reads Your Siding, Stucco or Stone Quotes Against Your House Before You Sign

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

Three quotes to re-side the house: $22,000, $29,000 and $34,000. One says “fibre cement siding supplied and installed”; one names the product, the profile and the colour; one includes the tearoff and the other two do not say. One has house wrap and flashing kits as lines; one has “wall prep as required”. None of them mention the soffit. 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 wall area gets 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, most of them finished in stucco, stone and siding by trades he hired and inspected. Turnaround three business days.

What you get

Exterior 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 net wall area checked against your house, gables and openings in, and the eaves counted
  • The product each one actually named: brand, profile, thickness, colour, or “siding” and nothing else
  • What each one leaves out, in dollars: tearoff, house wrap, flashing kits, strapping, trim, eaves, the bin
  • Whether there is a unit rate for rotten sheathing and fascia, and for stucco, whether the bands and frieze are priced
  • 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
Exterior Finish Takeoff
$249

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

  • Every elevation measured off the drawings: gross wall, gables, openings, net area by cladding with waste
  • Stone and brick areas with corners and sills; stucco details by the foot: bands, frieze, quoins, colour changes
  • Soffit depth and length, fascia, eavestrough runs and downspout count; the attic venting the soffit must give
  • Flashing and transition schedule: every opening, every roof-to-wall, every change of material, with the ledge or shelf angle where masonry needs one
  • A budget at builder, mid and premium grade at October 2026 Ontario rates, per cladding and per square foot of net wall
  • The twelve-line scope to send to three contractors 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 with masonry, stucco and eaves from different companies, 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 wall list (the one the calculator writes is ideal), and a photo of each side of the house plus close-ups of anything soft, stained or loose.
  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 $5,000 higher once the tearoff, the wrap and the flashing are in, the dear one turns out to include the eaves and a 10-year workmanship warranty, and the middle one wins.

What it is not

It is not a site inspection. Nobody probes your sheathing for $99; the quotes, your wall list and your photos are what gets read. If the photos show something that needs a person on a ladder (a stain under a roof-to-wall corner, stone with a gap opening behind it, fascia you can see daylight through), it says so and says who to call first. It is not a binding price, a specification for the contractor, 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 wall area with no gables in it, so the material is 15% short and the “extras” invoice is already written.
  • “Fibre cement siding” with no brand, profile or colour, beside a quote that named a 7-1/4 in. ColorPlus lap at the same price.
  • “Wall prep as required” with no unit rate, on a 1985 house that has never had house wrap.
  • A stucco quote with one square-foot rate and no bands, frieze, quoins or colour changes, on a house with 24 windows.
  • A stone quote with no mention of lath, scratch coat, flashing at the siding transition, or a ledge.
  • Soffit, fascia, the bin, the flashing kits and the J-channel each missing from a different quote.
  • A $90,000 “hidden moisture damage” proposal from a door-to-door company, on a house whose only problem was one missing kick-out flashing.

Before you order, the free version

The twelve-line grid is on the site and you can fill it in yourself. The inspection checklist and the stucco details page 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 $8,000 apart and you cannot see why, that is what the review is for.

Questions people ask

Can you review a quote for just the eavestroughs, or just a stone front?

Yes. Any combination of siding, stucco, masonry, soffit, fascia and eavestrough 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 siding is already on 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, with the manufacturer’s sheet and the code section behind each, which is what you need before you write to anyone. Vinyl problems; stone 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