The Cheapest Patio Quote Is Usually a Different Patio

Three quotes arrive for the same back yard. One is $12,000, one is $19,000, one is $27,000. Nobody is lying. They are describing different pieces of work.

Where the money hides

On a hardscape job the visible material is a modest share of the total. Most of the cost is excavation, base material, compaction, drainage and labour, and every one of those is invisible the day the job finishes and for about three years afterwards.

That is an unusual position for a consumer to be in. With most purchases, more money buys something you can see. With a patio, more money mostly buys things you never will.

Here is what the cheap quote is usually leaving out.

Base depth. A patio on Piedmont clay needs real excavation and a graded aggregate base compacted in thin lifts. A thinner base, or one dumped and rolled once rather than built up, produces a surface that reads flat for two seasons and then dishes at the low point.

Drainage. Water that reaches the base and cannot leave will move the aggregate over time. A drainage path at the low edge and a positive fall built into the surface are not extras. On clay that absorbs at around half an inch of water per hour, by the Metro North Georgia Water Planning District figure, this matters more here than in sandy ground.

Edge restraint. Without it a paver field spreads at the perimeter under load and the joints open.

Spoil removal. Excavated clay has to leave the site. On a property with poor access that is a real line item, and a quote that ignores it is a quote that intends to pile it somewhere in your yard.

Reinstatement. Putting back the lawn, the bed and the fence panel that the work crossed.

Then there is access

This is the largest single cost variable on a Sandy Springs lot and it is rarely discussed. A back yard a mini excavator can drive into and one where every barrow of stone goes down a flight of steps through a gated side yard are the same square footage and completely different labour.

A quote that assumes machine access and one that does not will diverge substantially, and the assumption is usually unstated. It is worth asking directly: how are you getting material to the work, and what changes if you cannot?

And the scope boundary

The third cause of divergence is what each company decided was in the job. One includes the drainage that makes the patio survive the winter. Another quotes the patio alone. The second number is lower and the finished result is worse, and neither document says so.

The same happens with tree protection. Working inside a protected root zone means hand digging and slower progress, and in Sandy Springs the trees involved are frequently ones that would need a permit to remove at 18 inches diameter at breast height or more. A quote that has priced the work as though the trees were not there is a quote that will either damage them or cost more than it says.

What to do about it

Compare quantities, not totals.

• Square feet of paving, and the base depth and material under it
• Linear feet of drain, and where it discharges to
• Face square feet of wall, and whether geogrid and free-draining backfill are in the price
• Cubic yards of spoil, and where it goes
• Whether permits are included and who pulls them
• What the access assumption is

Any quote that cannot answer those is not a quote you can compare against another one. Any quote that can is a document you can hold up against the cost guide and the budget estimator and form a view.

The rule of thumb

A price dramatically below the others is not usually a bargain. It is usually a different scope, and the difference is under the ground where nobody will see it until the surface starts to move.

That is not an argument for taking the highest number either. It is an argument for reading all three against the same list, which takes twenty minutes and is the single most useful thing a homeowner can do before signing anything.

More on the buried half of the job in the quote reading guide and the patio materials guide.

Sources: Metro North Georgia Water Planning District irrigation and watering guidance for the clay absorption figure. City of Sandy Springs Tree Removal Permits page for the diameter threshold. Cost ranges referenced are our own estimates of local market pricing.