Licence · Code · Quote · Terms
The company that failed your inspection is the one selling you the fix.
Nobody checks their work. Not the fire marshal — he is not allowed to. We read the quote before you pay it.
What the published standard requires, whether the contractor’s licence authorizes the quoted scope, which line items do not survive a question, and the exact questions to ask in order.
Flat fee, quoted before we start. No commission, and no percentage of anything we save you.
Where to start
Four places a commercial quote goes wrong.
Each section starts from the problem rather than the product. Pick the one that is currently costing you money.
01Licence and scope
Your electrician cannot touch your sprinkler system.
A licence class is legal authorization, not a quality badge. Without the right one, the work is not lawful — however good the contractor is.
4 topics →02Codes and standards
Replace it, or test it? They only make money on one answer.
The standard often permits two remedies at different prices. The quote will only price one of them.
3 topics →03Reading a quote
Why does your quote have one number instead of five?
One number instead of five is a choice. So is the exclusion list that makes the cheaper bid the expensive one.
3 topics →04Contract terms
The clause that says you accepted the invoice by not replying.
Dispute windows, acceleration on default, and the language that lets a dispute at one building shut off a service at another.
1 topics →By trade
Or start from the work you are actually buying.
Each trade page carries the licence classification that authorizes the work, the county-level licence counts, an anonymised example of how that job goes wrong, and the questions to ask before you authorize anything.
What to do instead
Three questions, in this order, before you approve anything.
Reverse the order and you spend the job defending a decision you made with the least information you will ever have.
- 01
Whether the licence covers the work
Not whether the contractor is licensed — almost all of them are. Whether the classification they hold authorizes the specific scope on the quote. This is the question that eliminates the most quotes, and it is answerable from public records in minutes.
- 02
What the published standard actually requires
Standards routinely permit two remedies at very different prices. The quote will name one. Establish what the code allows before you accept the version that was selected for you.
- 03
What you signed
Dispute windows, interest escalators, cross-default language, and which entity is actually on the agreement. This one costs nothing to check and it is the one people check last, usually during the dispute it would have prevented.
Reasonable scepticism
The fair questions about a service like this.
Can't I just get a second bid?
You should, and a second bid is genuinely useful. What it will not tell you is which line items on the first quote were never valid, because the second contractor is pricing their own scope rather than auditing someone else's. A second bid gives you a different number. It does not tell you whether the first one was real.
Isn't all of this in the code books already?
It is, at a length and in a register that assumes you already know the answer. NFPA 25 will not tell you that the deficiency on your report cites the date stamped on a part rather than the time it has been in service. We write the version you would want a colleague to explain before the meeting.
Who is behind this, and who pays for it?
Xenco Labs, which publishes comparison and reference sites in adjacent industries. Owners pay us a flat fee to review a quote. We take no money from contractors, no commission on work, and no percentage of any reduction — a success fee would recreate the exact conflict this exists to remove.
Is this an inspection?
No, and the distinction is not a technicality. We read published standards, licence records, and the documents you were given, and we tell you what they say. We do not inspect your building, certify anything, or give legal advice. For a dispute of any size you want an attorney, and we will say so.
A mandated inspection is not optional, the contractor knows the date, and the only person in the room reading the code is the one being paid to find something.
That is the whole asymmetry. It is not fraud and it usually is not even dishonesty — it is that nobody independent has read the paperwork.
New analysis as it publishes.
Licence scope, code requirements, quote mechanics, and contract terms. Nothing else, and no vendor pitches.