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What Cladding Actually Does on a Queensland House

Cladding is the layer that takes everything the weather throws before any of it reaches the structure, and in Queensland the weather throws more than most places. Driving rain arrives horizontally in storm season, ultraviolet exposure runs high for most of the year, and the coastal strip adds salt to the mix. A wall covering that manages all of that for decades is doing quiet, constant work. When it stops doing that work, the damage moves inward fast. Framing, linings and floors all cost more than the skin that protects them.

On most modern houses the cladding is a skin over a frame, and behind it sit a wrap, a cavity in better systems, insulation and the internal lining. Water that gets past the boards has somewhere to drain, and a damaged section can be opened and repaired without touching the rooms inside. That layered arrangement is what installers mean when they describe cladding as a system rather than a product. Buy the system thinking, not just the board.

A large share of older Queensland timber houses work completely differently, and this catches southern buyers and new owners constantly. In single skin construction the external boards are the wall, fixed to exposed studs with no separate lining, no cavity and no second line of defence. The chamferboards you see from the street are also what you touch from inside the room. Repairing or replacing that wall is carpentry on the structure itself, not a covering over it. Plenty of renovation budgets have discovered this in week two.

Which of these two situations you own changes everything that follows on this page. The materials worth considering, the price of a repair, whether a job is cosmetic or structural and who is licensed to do it all depend on it. An hour from a building inspector settles the question where the wall linings make it unclear. Most installers will identify it in the first five minutes of a site visit. The answer is worth having before quotes arrive. It stops you comparing prices for two different jobs.

Choosing Between the Materials

Timber remains the natural choice where the house is timber already. Boards match the existing profile, individual lengths are replaceable forever, and a well kept painted hardwood wall lasts generations. The costs are ongoing rather than upfront, since timber needs its paint system maintained, and it is the one material on this list that termites can eat. Character overlays in older suburbs sometimes require it regardless. Check the overlay before falling in love with a brochure.

Fibre cement has become the default for much of the state's new work, and the reasons are practical. It does not rot, termites cannot eat it, it holds paint well, and it carries good fire resistance. Planks mimic weatherboard profiles closely enough that most people cannot pick the difference from the footpath. Its weaknesses are brittleness before fixing and the silica dust released when it is cut, which is a controlled hazard requiring proper extraction and masks. Reputable crews treat the cutting station as seriously as the wall.

Vinyl earns its place on budget recladding and rental stock because it removes the paint cycle entirely. The colour runs through the material, washing is the only upkeep, and over old walls it is frequently installed with insulation backing that improves the wall at the same time. It dents and cracks under impact, dark colours moving through decades of Queensland sun can distort, and a damaged section is replaced rather than patched. Keeping a box of spare lengths from the original run makes those future swaps invisible.

Metal systems, from corrugated profiles through standing seam, where long trays join along raised folded edges, to interlocking panels, suit the climate well and are having a resurgence on architectural work. They are light, entirely unbothered by termites, and long lived when the coating system suits the distance from salt water. Insulated wall panels bring cladding and insulation together in one component and are covered on their own page. So are brick cladding systems, which put a masonry face on a framed wall without full brickwork. Each has a dedicated page in this series with its own pricing.

Wind Regions, and Why Cairns Is a Different Job From Brisbane

Queensland spans more than one wind region, and cladding is one of the building elements that regions exist for. South east Queensland sits in a non cyclonic region, while the coast from around Bundaberg north is cyclonic, and every site carries a wind classification that fixing schedules are built from. The same fibre cement plank is legitimate right along the coast. How often it is fixed, with what fastener, into what framing changes with the classification. The certifier signs off on the schedule, not the look.

The physics is uplift and suction, meaning wind pulling cladding off the wall rather than pressing on it, which is the reverse of what people imagine. Wind accelerating over and around a building pulls at wall coverings, corners and edges cop multiples of what the middle of a wall sees, and light claddings are held on or lost at the fixings. Cyclone case fasteners, closer spacings and specified washers exist because ordinary schedules lose sheets in events that northern buildings must shrug off. None of this is visible in a finished wall, which is why it lives in the paperwork instead.

For an owner this has three practical consequences. A quote in a cyclonic area should name the wind classification it prices, because a schedule for a sheltered suburban block and one for an exposed coastal rise are different jobs. Second hand advice from southern relatives about what cladding costs does not transfer north of Bundaberg. And an installer vague about classifications on a North Queensland job is the wrong installer. The question costs nothing and filters fast.

Storm season is also when existing cladding fails, which is why so much of this work arrives as insurance repair. Wind driven debris punches boards, trees take out corners, and water finds every lap that was already loose. After a big blow, storm damage repair crews and cladding installers work the same streets, and photographing damage before any temporary fix helps the claim. Insurers also accept matched partial repairs more readily when the photos are good. Take them wide and close, with something for scale. Date stamps on those photos settle arguments later.

The Asbestos Question on Anything Built Before 1990

Queensland clad enormous numbers of houses in asbestos cement sheeting through the middle of last century, and the state's rule of thumb is blunt. A house built or clad before 1990 is presumed to contain asbestos materials until testing says otherwise. Fibro walls, gable infills, eaves linings and the flat sheet under later vinyl are the common places. The material is stable while painted and undisturbed, and dangerous exactly when cladding work disturbs it. That paradox is exactly why the testing step exists.

That reshapes how any repair or reclad on an older house begins. Nobody cuts, drills, sands, breaks or pressure washes suspect sheeting before a sample comes back from a laboratory, and asbestos testing is cheap against the alternative. Removal beyond a small area is work for a licensed removalist, done wet, sheeted in plastic, and disposed of at a facility that accepts it. None of it goes in a skip.

Budget honestly for this rather than hoping. On a full reclad of a fibro house, licensed removal commonly runs several thousand dollars before a single new board goes on, and quotes that skip the line item have not made the problem disappear. They have moved it to a variation, or worse, to a contractor who intends to handle it badly. A clean clearance certificate at the end protects the next sale as well as your lungs. Keep it with the house documents, not in a drawer of receipts.

One honest upside sits at the end of all this expense. Once the old sheeting is off, the frame is exposed for inspection and treatment, the new wall can be wrapped and insulated properly, and the house that results is better in every layer than what the fibro hid. Owners who fear the asbestos line on a quote are usually happier at the end of a reclad than anyone else. The wall they finish with is the wall the house should always have had.

Termites, Weep Holes and the Inspection Zone

Most of Queensland sits in the country's highest termite risk band, and cladding meets termites at the bottom edge of the wall. Houses are built with a termite management system and an inspection zone, a strip near the base of the wall kept visible so mud leads from the ground have nowhere hidden to run. Cladding that is carried too low, garden beds piled against the wall or a new deck slab poured over the zone all give termites a concealed highway into the frame. The insects need darkness and moisture, and bad detailing supplies both. Deny them either one and the risk falls away.

This is a genuinely common defect on otherwise decent cladding jobs. An installer chasing a neat line to the ground buries the zone that the pest industry relies on, and the first anyone knows is damage years later. Keeping the bottom of new cladding clear of soil and paving, preserving weep holes in brick veneer, and leaving the ant capping visible on stumped houses are all part of doing the job properly up here. It costs nothing extra to get right at installation and plenty to correct afterwards.

Timber cladding adds its own layer to the question, since the boards themselves are food. Durable species, primed cut ends, separation from the ground and a current termite management plan together keep the risk managed, and none of them work alone. On any older timber house, a termite inspection before cladding work starts is cheap certainty about what the wall conceals. Report in hand, the cladding quote stops carrying a hidden pest contingency. Certainty is the cheapest line the invoice will carry.

If activity or damage turns up, treat first and clad second. Sealing live termites behind fresh cladding is the most expensive sequencing error this trade offers, because everything just installed comes off again to fix it. General pest control arrangements that include an annual timber pest look over the wall base are the cheap ongoing defence. Skipping that annual look to save a modest fee is a false economy in this state.

Repairs: What Fails and How It Gets Fixed

Cladding repair in Queensland is mostly water, sun, impact and insects, in that order. Bottom boards rot where sprinklers, garden soil or splashback keep them wet. Paint chalks and opens on the weather faces, and the boards behind follow. Mowers, trailers and cricket balls account for the impact list, and storm season adds branches. Each of these is local damage, and board and plank systems exist precisely so that local damage gets a local fix.

A competent repair replaces the affected lengths, matches the profile, primes every face and edge including the ones that will never be seen again, and re flashes anything the damage exposed. Matching an old profile is the craft part, since plenty of historic chamferboard and weatherboard patterns are no longer stocked and get milled to order. The difference between a repair you can find in two years and one you cannot is preparation and paint, not the board. A repair invoice that lists priming by face is written by someone who does it. Ask to see the primed backs before anything goes on the wall.

The judgment call comes when repair stops making financial sense. One rotten board is a repair, a rotten bottom course on two walls is a warning, and soft boards scattered across every elevation mean the paint system failed years ago and the wall is telling you so. Somewhere in that progression the money swings toward recladding, and an honest installer will say which side of the line your house sits on. The dedicated cladding repairs page walks through failure patterns in more detail.

Repairs on a single skin house deserve their own mention, because a soft board there is a structural matter. The board carries load and braces the frame, so replacement needs propping thought through, like for like sizing, and a carpenter rather than a handyman. Interior finishes on the other side of that same board complicate everything, which is one reason carpentry services rather than general maintenance trades handle the old housing stock. The premium for that experience is small against the cost of a braced wall done wrong.

Installation and Recladding: How the Job Actually Runs

A new installation on a new frame is the simple version, and it still has an order worth knowing. Wrap goes on first and matters more than most owners realise, then cavity battens where the system uses them, then flashings at every opening, and only then the boards, set out so laps and joints land where they should. Penetrations for taps, lights and pipes get sealed as they happen rather than at the end. The last step is paint or coating, unless the material carries its finish already.

Recladding an occupied house is the same work plus logistics. Walls come off in stages so the house is never open overnight, and each exposed section gets its frame checked before anything covers it. This is the moment rot, past termite damage and undersized framing get found and fixed at reasonable cost, and a contingency of ten to twenty per cent for frame repair is realistic on anything older. Skipping the inspection because the schedule is tight defeats the point of opening the wall. You get one cheap look per generation, so take it.

Recladding is also the cheapest moment the house will ever have for wall upgrades. Insulation goes into open frames for a fraction of retrofit cost, windows can be swapped while their openings are accessible, and power points or taps on external walls move easily. Owners planning a reclad should decide these extras before quoting, not during the job, because a variation priced mid stream never comes at the day one rate. The house recladding page covers staging and whole of house decisions in depth. Read it before locking a budget.

Expect honest scaffolding and access costs on anything beyond a lowset. Queensland's highset stock puts wall tops well above safe ladder work, and proper access is a compliance matter as well as a quality one, since nobody fixes a straight line while overreaching. Two storey work, steep blocks and pool side elevations all add access money that belongs in the quote from the start. A price that assumes ladders on a highset is a price that will change.

Maintenance in a Queensland Climate

The state is hard on wall coverings in ways the brochure photographs never show. Ultraviolet exposure breaks down paint binders and vinyl plasticisers faster than southern owners expect, the wet season drives water at laps and joints horizontally, and humidity keeps southern facing walls damp enough to grow mould most summers. Coastal salt accelerates every metal fixing on the seaward side of the house. None of this argues against any particular material. It is a reason to run maintenance on a schedule rather than on symptoms.

The cheapest habit a cladding owner can form is an annual wash. A soft wash takes off the salt, dust and organic film that hold moisture against the surface, and it is the single best value maintenance any cladding gets. Pressure washing is a different thing and needs care, since driven water opens laps, and on suspect older sheeting it is exactly what the asbestos guidance says never to do. While washing, walk the wall base looking for soft boards, mud leads and lifted paint, because ten minutes of looking finds problems at repair size. The wall shows all of this plainly, provided somebody walks its length and looks.

Painted claddings live and die by the repaint cycle. In this climate the weather faces go first, and seven to ten years is a realistic full repaint interval for timber, longer for fibre cement, with the sunny sides sometimes needing attention earlier. Letting the cycle stretch because the wall still looks acceptable from the street is how boards end up drinking water through checked paint for years. Dedicated exterior painting crews price a repaint as routine work, and the same money after rot sets in buys carpentry instead. Paint is the cheapest structural maintenance a timber house gets.

Sealants and flashings age faster than the cladding around them. Joint sealant in expressed joint systems has a service life measured in years rather than decades, window head flashings work loose, and the junctions where cladding meets guttering and roof lines are where most leaks start. A maintenance visit that renews sealant and checks flashings every few years costs little and quietly prevents the expensive category of failure, which is water travelling inside the wall unseen. By the time it shows on a skirting board, the repair has multiplied.

Wraps, Condensation and Getting the Wall Layers Right

What sits behind the cladding matters as much as the cladding, and Queensland's climate makes the choices different from the southern states. In a hot humid climate the moisture drive through a wall runs mostly from outside in, toward the air conditioned interior, which reverses the logic many southern builders learned. Wraps and membranes have to be chosen for that reality, and the vapour permeable products that suit the state let walls dry rather than sealing moisture into them. Ask which wrap is priced and why, and listen for a climate answer rather than a brand answer. That climate literacy predicts the quality of the whole job.

A drained and ventilated cavity behind the cladding is the biggest single upgrade a reclad can make. Battens hold the boards off the wrap, water that gets past any lap drains harmlessly, and moving air dries the back of the cladding the way it dries the front. Systems installed hard against the wrap rely on every lap being perfect forever, and no lap is. On the coast, cavities also break the path that wind driven rain otherwise follows through fixings. It is a detail no one sees and every wall benefits from.

Air conditioning makes wall condensation a real Queensland issue rather than a theoretical one. Cooling the inside face of a wall in humid air invites moisture to condense somewhere in the layers, and a wall built with the wrong membrane in the wrong place can stay wet inside for months. This is design work rather than guesswork on new builds and full reclads, and it is a reason the cheap quote that skips the wrap discussion is not the same job as the proper one. The difference never shows at handover and always shows within five summers.

Insulation belongs in the same conversation, since an open frame is the one cheap chance to fit it. Wall batts sized to the frame, installed without compression and kept clear of the cavity do more for comfort in this climate than most owners expect, particularly on western walls. Combining a reclad with wall insulation turns a cosmetic project into a thermal one for a modest addition. Western wall batts repay themselves in cooling bills faster than almost any other envelope spend. The frame is open for days, and the chance never comes back cheaply.

Units, Facades and the Combustible Cladding Rules

Owners of houses can relax about one thing, because Queensland's combustible cladding regime is aimed at larger buildings rather than detached homes. Following overseas facade fires, the state required certain multi storey and commercial buildings to work through a checklist process identifying combustible external cladding, with registers, assessments and in some cases rectification. Private houses were not the target and are not caught by it. The distinction confuses plenty of owners, so it is worth stating plainly.

Anyone who owns in a unit scheme or manages a commercial building sits in different territory. Aluminium composite panels with combustible cores and some foam backed systems are the products of concern, the body corporate rather than the individual owner usually carries the obligation, and the state's Safer Buildings process run through the QBCC is the authoritative path. Facade work on these buildings is specified and certified, not chosen from a brochure. Committees get the best results by engaging a facade consultant before any contractor. Scope comes first and price second on these buildings.

The practical crossover for ordinary owners is product selection on new work. Fire performance is one of the things the National Construction Code, the rulebook every Australian building is approved against, cares about in external walls, non combustible options exist at every price point, and in bushfire mapped areas the bushfire attack level, the site rating that grades expected ember and flame exposure, adds its own material requirements. An installer proposing a foam cored or composite product should be able to say plainly where it is and is not compliant, and put the compliance evidence in writing. A product that cannot show its paperwork does not belong on a wall. The good manufacturers make the documents easy to find.

Fire is one of several reasons documentation matters more on cladding than owners assume. Keeping the product data, the fixing schedule and the compliance certificates from any significant cladding job protects the next sale, satisfies the insurer, and answers in one folder the questions a certifier or valuer asks years later. The facade cladding page covers larger building work in its own right. For houses, the folder matters most at sale time.

Licensing: Who May Do Cladding Work in Queensland

Queensland draws its licensing line by contract value, and cladding crosses it quickly. Building work worth more than $3,300 including labour and materials requires the contractor to hold the appropriate QBCC licence class, and there is a dedicated licence for wall and roof cladding alongside the carpentry and builder classes that also cover this work. A full reclad, and most multi wall repairs, sit far above the threshold. Checking a licence takes two minutes on the public register kept by the QBCC, and it is the single least skippable step in hiring. Do it before the site visit, not after the deposit.

The licence brings more than a card. Work under a licensed contract attracts the statutory home warranty scheme, contracts above set values must be written and compliant, and disputes have a regulator and a tribunal behind them rather than a shrug. An unlicensed operator quoting a $30,000 reclad is offering to remove every one of those protections along with a discount, and the discount rarely survives the first defect. Cheap becomes expensive the day something goes wrong.

Adjacent licences matter on the same job. Asbestos removal beyond the small area threshold needs a licensed removalist, structural changes on single skin walls belong with carpentry or builder classes, and any electrical work uncovered in a wall is an electrician's by law. A head contractor who names which licence covers which part of your job has thought about it properly. Consumer guarantees on all of it are explained by the ACCC, and unresolved contract disputes are heard by QCAT.

Owner builders occupy a narrow legal lane worth understanding before choosing it. The exemptions are real but limited, the asbestos and wind fixing rules do not soften for enthusiasm, and lenders and insurers both read owner built work carefully. For most people the sensible split is owner managed painting and washing, licensed trades for everything that penetrates or replaces the wall. Licensing requirements for every trade that touches a cladding job can be searched in one place through ABLIS.

What Cladding Work Costs in Queensland

Start with the small money, because it buys the information everything else depends on. An inspection with a written condition report runs $220 to $580 across Queensland, asbestos sampling adds a modest laboratory fee per sample, and together they turn a guess about the wall into a plan. A localised repair to a damaged section typically lands between $340 and $1,400, and a single board replaced, matched and primed runs $90 to $260 depending on profile and access. Those small jobs are also the cheapest education in how good an installer is. Watch how the small job is run and you have seen the big one.

Installed rates for new cladding follow the material. Fibre cement planks supplied and installed commonly run $70 to $145 per square metre, timber boards $95 to $190 with premium species above that, vinyl systems $75 to $150, and metal or aluminium systems $150 to $320. Architectural panels and interlocking systems climb from there and are priced on their own pages. Every one of these figures assumes a sound frame and ordinary access, which is exactly what older houses decline to provide. Closing the gap between the two is what the inspection report is for.

Full recladding is where the price ranges widen, for honest reasons. A typical Queensland highset stripped and reclad in fibre cement commonly lands between $19,000 and $58,000 once removal, frame repair allowance, wrap, flashings and painting are counted, with asbestos removal adding several thousand more on fibro stock. Cyclonic region fixing schedules add roughly ten to twenty five per cent to installation labour and fasteners. Scaffold, steep sites and three metre plus wall heights all add access money that varies with the block.

Maintenance spending stays small and regular by comparison with any of the above. An annual soft wash is a few hundred dollars bought in, a sealant and flashing service visit sits in similar territory, and a full repaint of a clad house runs into the thousands on the cycle the climate sets. The honest comparison was never maintenance against spending nothing. It is maintenance against the carpentry that follows skipped maintenance, which costs multiples and arrives at the least convenient time. Walls fail in storm season, never in the quiet months.

Around Queensland

Greater Brisbane and the south east corner hold most of the state's cladding work and most of its variety. Timber and chamferboard stock dominates the older inner suburbs, post war fibro spreads through the middle ring, and the growth corridors run to fibre cement over frame. Character housing overlays in Brisbane's older suburbs constrain what street facing walls can become, which pushes those jobs toward matched timber and keeps profile milling businesses busy. Quotes in these suburbs should name the profile being matched, not just the timber. Vague matching produces a wall that reads wrong from the street.

The coastal strip from the Gold Coast to the Sunshine Coast adds salt and exposure to everything. Seaward walls chew through coatings faster, stainless or properly coated fasteners stop being optional, and washing the salt film off becomes the maintenance habit that decides how long everything lasts. Canal and beachfront properties sit in the harshest band and are priced accordingly by installers who know what the third year looks like. Ask coastal installers what they use on their own houses and the answers converge fast.

From Bundaberg north through Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns, the cyclonic wind regions take over the specification. Fixing schedules tighten, fastener types change, and quotes that fail to name the wind classification are not complete quotes. The wet season also compresses the working calendar, so northern recladding is best planned for the dry months, and storm repair demand spikes hard after events, which is worth remembering when a quote seems slow to arrive in February. Booking shoulder season work in advance gets better crews at better prices. The rush pays surge rates for the same work. Patience works like a discount in the northern half of the state.

Inland and western Queensland trade humidity for heat, dust and distance. Ultraviolet exposure is fierce, thermal movement across big daily temperature swings works fixings and joints, and travel time puts a floor under small job pricing in remote areas. Toowoomba and the ranges add genuine cold nights to the mix, which widens the movement range again. Local trades in these towns quote the conditions they live with, and that local knowledge is worth paying for.

Choosing a Cladding Installer

Licence first, always, on any cladding hire. Ask for the QBCC licence number, check it on the public register, and confirm the class covers the work being quoted, which takes less time than reading a single review. Then ask what the contractor has done on houses like yours, because a crew that lives on new estate fibre cement and a crew that rebuilds single skin walls are both excellent at different jobs. Photographs of comparable completed work settle it quickly.

Make the quote name the things this page has covered, starting with the wind classification the fixing schedule prices. It should say what happens if the old wall tests positive, with removal as a priced line rather than a mystery. It should state the frame repair contingency and its rate. And it should itemise wrap, cavity and flashing inclusions, the paint system and coats, and who takes the waste.

Two quotes that both answer that list can be compared line against line. Two bare numbers on a page cannot, however far apart they sit. The discipline also filters installers before any money moves, because the ones who answer easily are the ones who price this way already. The ones who bristle at the list were planning to decide those questions later, at your expense.

Ask how the site runs day to day, since recladding an occupied house is lived experience as well as construction. How much wall opens at once, what happens when rain arrives mid stage, where the skip and materials sit, and how pets and pool fences are managed all separate practised crews from improvising ones. The answers also tell you who has actually done occupied reclads before, because the practised answer is specific. Vague answers here predict a difficult month later. Living through a reclad goes far more easily with a crew that plans around the household. The good ones volunteer the plan unprompted.

Then the ordinary commercial checks that apply to any trade. A written contract at the values that require one, insurance certificates that are current rather than claimed, deposit and progress payments tied to visible stages, and warranty terms for both workmanship and product in writing. The statutory protections behind licensed work only bite when the paperwork exists, so the paperwork is the point rather than the formality. No competent contractor resents being asked for any of it.

What to Look Out For

The expensive mistakes on Queensland cladding cluster in a short list. Work starting on a pre-1990 wall that nobody tested. Quotes with no named wind classification in the cyclone belt. New cladding buried into garden soil across the termite inspection zone. Modern sheets fixed straight over a single skin wall with no moisture design. Each one is invisible on handover day and each surfaces as a large bill years later, which is exactly why the cheap quote that skips them looks so good.

Be cautious about per metre prices quoted without seeing the frame, deposits out of proportion to materials, and any suggestion that licensing does not apply to your job because of how the paperwork will be split. Watch the sequencing on repairs, since paint before rot is fixed and cladding before termites are treated both bury problems at full price. And treat a beautiful street face with unpainted board ends and missing flashings behind it as what it is, which is half a job. The unseen faces are where cladding fails first.

Keep the documents the work produces. Test results, the removal clearance if there was one, the fixing schedule, product data sheets, warranties and the licensed contract together form the file that a future buyer's inspector, your insurer and the next tradesperson will each ask for. Cladding is the rare renovation where the paperwork adds sale value as directly as the finish does, because it answers the pre-1990 question in advance. A single folder saves a future owner thousands and costs you a drawer. Scan the lot once the job closes. Paper fades faster than membranes in this climate.

How to Get Comparable Quotes

Describe the house rather than the wish. Age, construction type if you know it, single or two storey, wall material now, and your postcode for the wind picture give an installer most of what pricing needs. Photographs of each elevation plus close ups of any damage do more than adjectives. Saying plainly that the house is pre-1990, where that is true, invites the testing conversation early instead of at variation time.

Say what outcome you want and what you suspect. Repair to stop a leak, tidy one wall before painting, or strip and reclad the lot are different briefs, and mixing them mid quote makes comparison impossible. Mention the things you already know about, soft boards, mud tubes, that corner that drips, because installers price uncertainty when owners hide it and price the work when they can see it. Surprises uncovered mid job always get priced at mid job rates. Disclosure is the cheapest negotiating position an owner has. Use that position early and keep using it.

Then hold every quote to the same list. Licence number, wind classification, asbestos position, frame contingency, wrap and flashing inclusions, paint system, access and waste. Ask each installer the same questions in the same words and the spread between quotes starts meaning something. The cheapest number on the table is only a bargain when it is quoting the same job as the dearest one.