One of my current projects is finding a contractor to replace the railing on our deck. The current rail is 13 years old, and truth be told, it needed to be replaced probably 7 or 8 years ago. See the picture - you'll see I'm not kidding! I've been told the railing is made of untreated wood, and really should never have been used. We have a "model" home, which we've learned is both a blessing and a curse... It's a blessing because everything inside the home was decorated to the nines. It's a bad curse because everything else in the house was installed on the CHEAP! But I digress...
So I've been collecting estimates from builders, and they've generally been coming in within a couple of hundred bucks of each other - with one MAJOR exception. Builder X has sent me an estimate that is more than THREE times the cost of all of the others. THREE times! I thought perhaps that he has made a math error, but I added it up, and yes - he apparently wants to charge me nearly $7,000 for a job that others are asking $2,000 for.
I started to wonder whether he wanted to price himself out of contention - that for some reason, he didn't want the job... But then he dropped me an email to make sure I had received his bid. In fact, he was the only contractor who has followed up his initial visit.
A question... Do you think I should let the guy know that he has grossly overpriced himself, or should I let him hang? Very odd...
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