Guide
What to exclude from a building quote
Published 28 September 2026
Almost everyone commissioning a one-off build writes down what they want. Almost nobody writes down what they do not want, and that second list is where the money goes. An exclusion is any piece of work that touches your job but is not in the price — and if it is not named, each shop quietly decides for itself whether it is in or out. One includes it and looks expensive. One leaves it out and looks cheap. You find out which at the end, when it arrives as an extra.
Writing exclusions feels rude. It reads like you are expecting to be short-changed. It is the opposite: a named exclusion is a favour to the maker, because it removes a risk they would otherwise have to price blind. The good ones will thank you for it, and the reply you get back will tell you a great deal about the ones who do not.
Here are the twelve that cause the most trouble on bespoke work — cabinetry, metalwork, staircases, fit-outs, refits — roughly in order of how often they turn into an argument.
Making good
Filling chased walls, patching the floor where an old unit stood, re-plastering, touching in paint. It is days of real work and it is the single most commonly assumed-in-or-out item in the trade. Say whether it is in the price, and if it is, say how far it goes: skim and fill is not the same as skim, fill, prime and two coats.
Decoration after the work
Even where making good is included, final painting usually is not. Name it either way. "Walls left ready for decoration, decoration by others" is a sentence that has settled a thousand arguments before they started.
Removing and disposing of the old one
Strip-out, carry-out, skip hire and tip fees. A skip on a permitted road needs a licence, and someone has to pay for it. If you are taking the old kitchen out yourself over a weekend, write that down; it is a real reduction and shops will price it.
Electrical and plumbing first fix
Moving a socket, adding a circuit, relocating a waste. Joiners and fabricators mostly do not hold these trades in house and will either sub them out at a mark-up or assume you have your own electrician. Both are fine. Guessing is not.
Appliances, fittings and ironmongery
Handles, hinges, taps, sinks, ovens, lights. List each one and put a name against it: yours or theirs. A quote that excludes four thousand of client-supplied material is not a cheaper quote, it is a smaller one.
Templating and stone
On anything with a worktop, the stone is often a separate supplier who templates after the carcases are in, and who invoices you directly. Say who orders it, who pays for it, and who carries the risk if a slab arrives chipped.
Structural work and anything behind the plaster
Lintels, beams, removing a stud wall, unknown pipework. If nobody has opened it up, nobody can price it honestly. Exclude it explicitly and handle it as a separate instruction when the wall is open, rather than letting each shop bury a different guess in its number.
Flooring
Levelling a subfloor, running new flooring under or up to the new thing, thresholds and trims. Whether flooring goes in before or after the units changes the price and the sequence, and both shops will assume the order they normally work in.
Permits, licences and building control
Skip permits, parking suspensions, scaffold licences, building-control notice and sign-off, and on a listed or flat-managed building, landlord or freeholder consent. Often small money, often nobody’s job, and occasionally the thing that stops the work for three weeks.
Surveys, drawings and templates
A measured survey, setting-out drawings, a cutting list, or a cardboard template for an awkward alcove. Some shops include a survey in the price and lose it if you go elsewhere; some charge for it separately. Ask which, in writing.
Protection, welfare and out-of-hours working
Sheeting your stairs and floors, dust screens, use of your toilet and power, and whether anyone can work Saturdays or before 8am. In a block with a porter and a goods-lift booking, this is not a formality.
Everything after handover
Snagging visits, the length of the guarantee and what it covers, seasonal movement in solid timber, and adjustment of doors and drawers six months in. A cheap quote with no return visit and a dearer one with a year of adjustments are not the same product.
How to write the list so nobody argues later
- 01Write exclusions as their own numbered list, not as clauses buried in a paragraph. A numbered line can be answered; a clause can be missed.
- 02Say who does the excluded work instead of only that you do not. "By others" is standard trade language and it is better than silence, because it tells the maker to leave room for somebody else.
- 03Exclude the thing, not the category. "Electrics" is vague. "Moving the double socket on the left-hand return, by others, before units are fitted" cannot be misread.
- 04Never exclude something you actually want. An exclusions list is not a price-lowering trick. If you exclude disposal and then expect the old units to vanish, you have bought an argument, not a saving.
- 05Ask every quoter to confirm your exclusions list back to you, and to add any of their own. Their additions are the most useful thing in the reply: they tell you what that shop normally leaves out.
- 06Put a date and a version on the list, and if it changes, tell everyone holding it. A quote against last week’s scope is not a quote.
The difference between an exclusion and a provisional sum
They look similar on a quote and they behave completely differently. An exclusion means the work is not in this price and not this shop’s problem. A provisional sum means the work is theirs, but cannot be specified yet, so a placeholder number sits in the total and moves up or down once the real scope appears.
Both are legitimate. What is not legitimate is a large provisional sum presented as a fixed price. If a quote carries one, ask what triggers it, how it will be measured, and what the rate is — and check whether the other quotes carry the same item as a hard exclusion instead. That single comparison is often the whole reason two numbers look thousands apart.
If your quotes are already in and already far apart, our companion guide on why quotes for the same job diverge walks the other seven mechanisms behind the gap.
A short exclusions list you can copy
Eleven lines, phrased the way a maker expects to read them. Delete what does not apply and add what does. Anything you are unsure about belongs on the list with a question mark next to it rather than left off — and note that the twelfth item above, everything after handover, is deliberately not here: you want the snagging visits and the guarantee in the price, so ask for them rather than excluding them.
Not included in this price
- 01 Removal and disposal of the existing units
- 02 Skip hire, tip fees and any skip permit
- 03 Electrical alterations and testing — by others
- 04 Plumbing alterations — by others
- 05 Appliances and taps — supplied by client
- 06 Worktop supply and templating
- 07 Flooring and subfloor levelling
- 08 Structural alterations of any kind
- 09 Final decoration — walls left ready for decoration
- 10 Building-control notice and sign-off
- 11 Out-of-hours or weekend working
Getting the list written for you
You can write all of this yourself with an afternoon and this page open, and on a small job you should. The hard part is not the format, it is knowing which twelve of your own items matter — because the list above is generic, and a staircase, a steel gate and a café fit-out each have three or four exclusions the others do not.
Public Keel interviews you about your specific object, pushes back when an answer cannot be priced, and publishes the result as one page at its own link that every shop on your shortlist reads and quotes against — line by line, exclusions named and numbered, every revision stamped and sent to everyone holding it. It costs $49 for a published brief, and makers pay nothing to read one or to quote against it.
This site and the business behind it are built by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is why a document like this costs an evening instead of a design fee.