"Remove stucco, install fiber cement siding, new trim. $68,000 plus GST." Homeowners forward us estimates like that more often than you would expect, usually as a text message or one paragraph in an email, from a renovation contractor who walked the house for twenty minutes. It names a price and a material. As a written estimate for an exterior renovation in BC, it leaves out nearly everything that decides what the job will cost by the time the scaffold comes down.
The gap shows up around week two. The old stucco comes off, the crew finds soft plywood under two windows, and the question of who pays gets settled by whoever wrote the most down. On a one-line estimate, nobody did, so the answer arrives as a change order.
A good estimate answers in writing the questions you would otherwise be asking in month two.
What should a written renovation estimate include in BC?
A written estimate for an exterior renovation in BC should list the property address and date, the scope elevation by elevation, the new wall assembly layer by layer with named products, how hidden damage is priced, access, permits, a hazardous materials survey on pre-1990 homes, exclusions and assumptions, a schedule in weeks, payment terms with the 10% lien holdback, GST, the warranty term, and how long the price holds, usually 30 to 60 days.
The scope matters more than the line items
Homeowners tend to judge an estimate by how many prices it breaks out, because line items feel transparent. In our experience the scope description carries more weight. Plenty of careful contractors give one price for the cladding package and break out only the uncertain items, partly so their unit pricing does not get passed to a competitor. That is fine, as long as the scope tells you exactly what the price buys.
The reverse is where people get hurt. An estimate with fifteen line items and a scope that reads "supply and install new siding as discussed" gives you nothing to hold anyone to, because six weeks later nobody remembers the discussion the same way.
A scope you can hold a renovation contractor to names each elevation and what happens to it. North and east walls, full stucco tear-off to the sheathing. South wall, overclad. West wall, no work beyond replacing the two kitchen windows. It gives an approximate wall area, since a typical 1990s two-storey in Coquitlam or Burnaby carries 2,500 to 3,500 square feet of wall. And it says what happens to the soffits, gutters, downspouts, deck ledger, hose bibs and light fixtures attached to the wall today. Small items like those start most of the "I assumed that was included" arguments we hear about.
The mistake we see most often is a chain that ends in a conversation. The homeowner signs a contract that refers to the estimate, the estimate refers to the site visit, and the site visit lives in two people's memories.
The new wall, layer by layer
Most of the money in a Lower Mainland exterior renovation goes into what sits behind the cladding. The estimate should describe the wall the way a builder would draw it in section, from the sheathing out:
- Sheathing repair, and how it is priced (more on that below)
- The weather barrier, by product name, with lap and taping details
- Rainscreen strapping, its depth, and how the cavity is vented at the top and drained at the bottom
- Flashings: sill pans, head flashings over windows and doors, kick-outs where a roof meets a wall, and the deck and balcony junctions
- The cladding, with brand, profile, thickness, and whether the finish is factory-applied or painted on site
- Sealant at windows and penetrations, by type
The BC Building Code expects a capillary break behind cladding on houses in our wet coastal climate, which in practice means a drained and vented rainscreen cavity. Most crews around Vancouver build it with 19 mm (3/4 inch) strapping. An estimate that says "new siding over building paper" with no mention of the cavity is either describing a wall that may not pass inspection or leaving the rainscreen to be priced later.
Windows need their own line. Re-flashing the existing windows during a re-clad, adding extension jambs so the trim sits right on the thicker wall, and replacing the windows outright are three separate budgets. A full tear-off and re-clad on a two-storey house often lands between $60,000 and $110,000, and replacing the windows in the same job can add $20,000 or more on top.
How the estimate should price hidden damage
Nobody knows what is under the stucco until it comes off. On Lower Mainland houses built before rainscreens became standard, some wet or rotted sheathing is close to certain, most often below windows and where a deck meets the wall. The written estimate has to say how that gets paid for, and there are three honest ways to do it.
An allowance sets aside a sum, say $4,000 for sheathing repair, and you pay the actual cost above or below it. A unit rate prices each piece: in Greater Vancouver right now, roughly $180 to $350 per sheet of plywood replaced and $400 to $900 per stud bay of framing repair. An exclusion leaves the work out and says so.
Unit rates are the fairest of the three, because the quantity gets counted on site with you looking at it.
The estimate should also say what happens at the moment of discovery. The crew photographs the damage, you receive a written count and a price, and work on that section continues once you sign. A two-day pause to approve a change order costs far less than an argument over the final invoice. We go through how allowances and unit rates stack up across competing bids in our guide to comparing renovation contractor bids line by line.
Access, permits and the survey on older houses
These three lines go missing from estimates more than any others.
Access. Scaffolding for a single-family home in Metro Vancouver typically costs $4,000 to $14,000 for supply, erection, one month of rental and dismantle. A full re-clad runs longer than a month. The estimate should state how many months the access price covers and what each extra month costs, and on a steep lot in North or West Vancouver that number deserves a second look.
Permits. In Vancouver, Burnaby and most other Lower Mainland municipalities, a re-clad that changes the wall assembly usually needs a building permit, while small like-for-like repairs often do not. The estimate should say who applies, who pays the fee, and who meets the inspector. The wait matters more than the fee: a renovation permit in Vancouver commonly takes 8 to 14 weeks to issue, and Burnaby and Coquitlam often take 4 to 8. Our breakdown of renovation permit costs and timelines in BC has the city-by-city detail.
Hazardous materials. WorkSafeBC requires a hazardous materials survey before renovation or demolition work on older buildings, which in practice means most houses built before 1990, and some older stucco and textured finishes contain asbestos. The survey on a house usually costs less than $1,500. Abatement is a different scale: if the lab finds asbestos in the stucco, removal on a full house can run $15,000 to $40,000. Your estimate should say whether the survey is included and how abatement would be handled if it comes back positive.
Exclusions and assumptions
Every price rests on assumptions, and a careful estimator writes them down. On exterior jobs around Greater Vancouver, the common ones look like this:
- Bins and materials can sit on the driveway for the length of the job
- Existing windows stay and are re-flashed
- Electrical, gas and plumbing lines on the wall are moved by others
- Work starts by a named month, and a winter start adds tarping and heat
Read this part of the estimate twice. When an assumption turns out to be wrong, the price moves, and the estimate has already told you it would. When the assumptions are missing, the same price moves anyway, and you find out from an invoice.
Schedule, payment and how long the price holds
The estimate should give a start window and a duration in weeks. Six to twelve weeks on site is common for a full re-clad of a house, longer with heavy rot or window replacement. It should also say how the crew handles a wet stretch, because between October and April open walls need tarping or scaffold wrap, and several cladding and sealant products have minimum installation temperatures set by the manufacturer.
Payment terms belong on the estimate before they reach a contract. A deposit of 10 to 15 percent with progress draws tied to finished stages (tear-off complete, rainscreen inspected, cladding complete) is a reasonable structure. BC's Builders Lien Act requires the owner to hold back 10% of each payment for 55 days after the work is complete, and an estimate that ignores the holdback or asks for 40% up front moves risk onto you. GST at 5% should appear as included or added. On a $75,000 job that is $3,750.
Extra work needs a written rule too: the hourly labour rate, the markup on materials, and a line saying every change is priced and signed before the crew starts it.
Then the validity date. A line saying the price holds for 30 or 60 days can read like a sales tactic. In practice the estimator priced cladding, lumber and labour on a specific date and knows those numbers move. An estimate with no expiry is the one to question, because it gets repriced when you call to book, and in our experience the new number is rarely lower.
The paper behind the price
Once you sign, the estimate usually becomes part of the contract, so the company details on it matter as much as the numbers. Look for the legal business name and address, a GST number, and the name of the person who will run your job. Then ask for the documents that stand behind it:
- A WorkSafeBC clearance letter, which you can also request yourself online
- A certificate of commercial general liability insurance showing the limit, commonly $2 million for residential exterior work and $5 million on strata buildings
- The workmanship warranty in writing, with a term in years and whether it covers labour, materials or both
Manufacturer warranties on the cladding are separate, and they usually depend on the product being installed to the manufacturer's instructions. That is one more reason the estimate should name the exact product. Our guide to what a BC renovation contract should contain picks up where the estimate stops.
Strata buildings follow a more formal path. An envelope consultant usually writes the specification and contractors price it through a tender, so the scope is settled before any estimate arrives. Unit rates for hidden damage and a schedule in weeks still belong in every tender price.
How MV Construction writes an estimate
MV Construction has priced and built exterior renovations across Greater Vancouver and Vancouver Island for more than 10 years. We are fully licensed and WCB-insured, and our workmanship is warranty-backed. Our estimates are written and itemized, with allowances, unit rates and exclusions listed, so you can see what the price covers before you sign anything. That holds across our exterior renovation work, from stucco tear-offs on houses to building envelope repairs on strata buildings.
If you are planning an exterior renovation for next spring, call us at (778) 375-5672 or request a fixed-scope written estimate. We start with a no-obligation site visit and follow it with a detailed written estimate.
