Featured guide
The Bid Sheet
- Reading the Bid How Much Deposit for a Contractor: Caps and Lien Waivers Five states cap the deposit, one of them at $1,000. What the cap covers, the bond that suspends it, and the waivers that decide if you pay twice.
- Water & Plumbing PEX Pipe vs Copper: What the Quote Leaves Out A repipe bid names a material and a lump sum. The print string on the tubing, the letter on the copper, and nine excluded lines decide the rest of it.
- Warranties & Claims Parts and Labor Warranty: What Lifetime Actually Owes A 10-year parts warranty buys the part, not the repair. What parts, labor, lifetime, and prorated each obligate, traced to the certificates by form number.
- Repair or Replace HVAC Age by Serial Number: Decoding the Date Carrier starts your warranty 90 days after manufacture if the install date can't be proven. The serial number is the proof. How each brand encodes the date.
- Heating & Cooling Manual J S and D: How to Tell If Sizing Was Skipped A bid that says 'sized per Manual J' owes you a report with nine inputs on it. What each ACCA manual covers, what code requires, and the tells none was run.
- Panels & Wiring Zinsco and FPE Panels: Hazard or Sales Scare Three names land in one replacement quote, but their paper trails are nothing alike. What the CPSC file, the court docket, and your insurer's form actually say.
- Water & Plumbing Water Heater Repair or Replace: Five Failures Worth Fixing A plumber's quote names a part. Your tank's rating plate names a date and a warranty term. Both decide the answer, and only one of them is in the quote.
- Warranties & Claims HVAC Warranty Registration: Miss It, Lose Half Seven warranty certificates from six brands, side by side: who gives you 60 days to register, who gives 90, and what the unregistered column quietly costs.
- Roofing Drip Edge and Ice Barrier: Are They Really Optional A roofing bid files three items under optional upgrades. Two are code items with no exception clause; the third can cut a lifetime warranty to ten years.
- Repair or Replace Repair or Replace HVAC: Where the $5,000 Rule Breaks Three rules of thumb, one nineteen-year-old furnace, two opposite answers. Where those rules came from, where they fail, and the arithmetic underneath them.
- Roofing Roofing Estimate: Squares, Layers and Six Missing Lines A roof is sold by the square, so a bid with no square count is a price attached to nothing. Pitch, waste, layers, and the six lines usually left off.