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Quote Teardown 06  /  Bathroom remodel, Seattle, WA

$28,400 for a bathroom in Seattle, with $4,650 in allowances. What happens when I pick more?

Toshikatsu Oga  /  October 9, 2026
A tile setter setting wall tile in a shower during a bathroom remodel, with tile boxes and a bucket of thinset on the floor.
Illustrative photo. Not the house, the crew or the quote in this issue.
  1. The quote
  2. The one line to ask about
  3. The arithmetic
  4. What to ask the contractor
  5. What this does not establish
  6. Questions
  7. Sources

An allowance is a placeholder: the contractor guesses what you will choose and prices the guess. Here, tile, fixtures and the vanity are allowances adding up to $4,650. The quote does not say what each allowance buys or how overages are charged, so the real price is not on the page yet.

$28,400 bathroom. $4,650 of it is allowances. Then what? Ledger of the illustrative quote with the line to ask about marked.

The card for this issue. The quote is illustrative, written for teaching; it is not any real contractor's quote.

The quote

Illustrative quote. Bathroom remodel, Seattle, WA.

LineQuoted
Demolition and haul-away$2,800
Waterproofing and backer board$1,700
Tile installation, floor and shower walls$6,400
Tile allowance, 120 sq ft @ $6The line to ask about$720
Plumbing fixture allowanceAllowance$2,400
Vanity and top allowanceAllowance$1,530
Plumbing$4,200
Electrical$2,350
Drywall and paint$1,800
Project management and cleanup$4,500
Total$28,400

The one line to ask about

Tile allowance, 120 sq ft @ $6: $720

$6 a square foot is a guess about the tile you will pick. If the tile you choose costs more, the difference comes back as a change order. Some contracts add the contractor's markup to that difference; the quote has to say whether this one does.

Ask three things about every allowance: what product the number assumes, whether it is at the contractor's cost or at retail, and how an overage is billed.

The tile installation line can be set against wages, as plain wages only. Washington has no published loading rule that we use.

The arithmetic

  1. Allowances: $720 + $2,400 + $1,530 = $4,650, or 16% of the $28,400 total
  2. Example: you choose tile at $14 a square foot. 120 x $14 = $1,680. Overage: $1,680 - $720 = $960, before any markup on the overage.
  3. Tile installation: $6,400. BLS wage for tile and stone setters (SOC 47-2044), Seattle metro, May 2025: $39.65 mean, $50.20 at the 90th percentile. $6,400 is 161 hours of wages at the mean (127 at the 90th percentile), before the contractor's insurance, taxes and markup. Ask how many hours the installer expects.

Public numbers used above:

  • $39.65: Tile and stone setters (SOC 47-2044), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA, mean hourly wage, May 2025. Source
  • $50.20: Tile and stone setters (SOC 47-2044), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA, 90th percentile hourly wage, May 2025. Source

What to ask the contractor

Copy this into a text or an email. A contractor with a reason for each number can answer in a minute.

Before I sign, could you add to the quote:
1. For each allowance, the product it assumes (a model number or a link is fine).
2. Whether allowances are at your cost or at retail.
3. How overages are billed: at cost, or with markup, and at what percentage.
4. Whether the difference comes back to me as a credit if I choose something cheaper.

What this does not establish

It does not say the allowances are too low. $6 a square foot may match the tile you want. It shows that $4,650 of the price is still a guess, and that the overage terms decide what you finally pay. The wage is an average of pay, not a billing rate.

Your own quote

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Questions

What is an allowance on a remodeling quote?

A placeholder amount for something you have not chosen yet, like tile or a faucet. If you pick something that costs more, you pay the difference, sometimes with markup. The quote should say which.

How do I compare quotes with different allowances?

Set the allowances to the same amounts, or ask both contractors to price the same products. Otherwise the lower quote may only have smaller guesses.

Sources

Every public number on this page links to the record it comes from. Wages were looked up in USCCDB, which carries the BLS file as published. Statutes, codes and agency pages are quoted as published on October 9, 2026; check the source for changes.

  1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, metropolitan area data (oesm25ma.zip)
  2. United States Construction Cost Database (USCCDB) v1.0, doi:10.5281/zenodo.22979157, CC BY 4.0

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