Estimates here follow a scope rather than precede one. What you get on the phone is a range and the variables inside it, and a firm number once somebody has stood in front of the opening.
Why this starts on the phone
A number given before anyone has measured the frame is a guess wearing a suit. Openings vary by rating, by prep, by frame condition, and by how much of the existing assembly can stay. All four move the price, and none of them are visible from a phone call.
Rating status changes everything. A rated assembly restricts which hardware may be fitted, which repairs are permitted, and whether a field modification is possible at all.
Frame condition decides whether you are buying a door or an opening. Those are different jobs at different prices.
Access and hours are real cost. Work that has to happen after close, or under escort, or through a landlord approval chain, gets scheduled and priced differently.
Counting matters. Buildings routinely underestimate their opening count, and a quote written against the wrong count helps nobody.
Some of what gets described on these calls is not our work. When that happens you get told and pointed elsewhere on the same call.
Have this ready
What makes the call quicker
Address with suite or unit, and the nearest cross street if the building is inside a park.
Roughly how many openings are involved, even as a guess. One door and forty doors are different conversations.
Whether any of the openings involved are fire rated, and if you know it, what the label says.
Access arrangements: who lets us in, what hours the space is available, and whether escort is required.
What the call leads to
Survey first, then a number
Survey, then schedule, then repair. The register is yours whether or not we do the corrections.
