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What should a builder’s change-order estimate include?
If a client asks for a design change during construction, what do you expect to see in the written change-order estimate before deciding whether to proceed? I’d want to understand how it separates labor, materials, design or drafting fees, schedule impacts, and any builder markup, rather than leaving the added cost as a single unexplained figure.
There’s also a timing question: does the affected work usually pause while the client reviews the price, or can waiting for final pricing itself delay other work? How do builders make that trade-off clear without treating the change as approved before the client agrees to the cost?
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For each priced item, the estimate should also state what work it assumes and what it excludes. For example, does the price include patching and repainting surfaces affected by the change? If not, identifying that exclusion helps the client assess the full cost of completing the work, rather than just the builder’s quoted portion.