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A fabrication quote comes back well over budget, and the shop tells you the drawings were incomplete. The reflex is to argue the number. The more useful question is what the package was missing, because an incomplete millwork specification package almost always prices high, and for a reason.
When a shop cannot see a decision on the drawings, it has two choices: send an RFI and wait, or price the risk. On a package going out to several bidders on a schedule, most shops price the risk. Every unknown gets carried at the cost of the worst reasonable interpretation. Ten small unknowns compound into a number that looks like padding but is really the shop protecting itself against a drawing set that does not commit.
Here is what belongs in the package before it goes out for pricing, and where the gaps usually sit.
What a Complete Millwork Specification Package Contains
A package that can be priced tightly answers the questions a shop would otherwise have to ask. The core items are these.
- Core material and substrate for each assembly: particleboard, MDF, plywood, or fibreboard, called out by type rather than left to the shop’s discretion.
- Face and finish specification: laminate, veneer species and cut, paint grade, or thermofoil, with a finish schedule tying each item to a location.
- Edge treatment: PVC, wood edge, or self-edge, with profile and thickness.
- Hardware schedule: hinges, drawer slides, pulls, locks, and closers, by manufacturer and series, not just “soft-close” as a category.
The second half of the list covers the standard of work and the points where the millwork meets other trades.
- Grade of work referenced to the North American Architectural Woodwork Standards (NAAWS) published by AWMAC, which define the grades of work, so the level is not left to interpretation.
- Blocking and backing requirements, showing where in-wall support must exist for wall-hung casework, and who is responsible for it.
- Dimensions with tolerances, and a note on whether dimensions are to be site verified before fabrication.
- Coordination items: locations for electrical, data, and plumbing rough-ins that pass through or terminate in the millwork.
None of this is exotic. It is the difference between a drawing set that decides and a drawing set that describes an intention.
Where Packages Go Incomplete
Hardware Left as a Category
A drawer slide called “heavy duty full extension” without a manufacturer and series forces the shop to guess. The spread between an economy slide and a name-brand undermount is real, and the shop that guesses low loses money while the shop that guesses high loses the bid. Name the series. If you want the shop to propose an equal, say so and say what it must match.
Blocking Nobody Owns
Wall-hung reception casework and upper cabinets need backing in the wall. When the millwork drawings assume the framing package handles it and the framing package assumes the millwork does, the backing is not there at install. The fix is on paper: show the blocking, dimension it, and name who supplies it. This is a coordination item that costs nothing to resolve in the drawing set and a change order to resolve on site.
Finish Specified by Adjective
“High quality finish” is not a specification. A shop needs the sheen, the system, and for stained veneer, an approved sample or a defined range. Leaving finish open means the shop either carries the cost of a full spray system or prices something cheaper that becomes a deficiency the day it lands on site.
Grade Without a Standard
The named grades of work mean specific things under a published standard. Writing a vague quality adjective into the spec without referencing the NAAWS grade invites two shops to price two different scopes and call it the same words. Reference the grade and the standard, and the bids become comparable.
The Trade-Off, Stated Plainly
There is a real tension here, and it is worth naming. Fully resolving a millwork package takes design time and often a shop consultation before the drawings are complete, and schedules do not always allow it. Sometimes issuing an early package to get a budget number is the right call, as long as everyone understands the number is a range and not a commitment.
The error is treating a preliminary package like a final one. If the drawings are not resolved, the quote is not either. Ask for an itemized breakdown, and ask the shop to flag its assumptions in writing. A shop that lists what it assumed is giving you the map of where your package is thin, and that list is more useful than the number on the bottom line.
We will also say the part that does not help us sell anything: not every project needs a fully bespoke package. Where a scope is repetitive and off a standard grid, a simpler specification against catalogue components can price fairly and build cleanly. The custom package earns its cost where geometry, finish match, or coordination actually demand it. Specifying custom detail on work that did not need it is one of the ways a budget gets away from a project.
What Moves the Number
The things that move a millwork quote are the same things a package should pin down: core material, finish system, edge treatment, hardware selection, linear footage of tall and specialty units, coordination with other trades, and the number of revisions after the package is issued. A change late in the drawing set, after shop drawings are in review, is the most expensive kind, because it can ripple into material already ordered and floor time already scheduled.
The One Thing Worth Doing Next
Before your next millwork package goes out for pricing, run it against the list above and mark every item that is described rather than decided. Each of those is a place a shop will either send an RFI or price the risk. Closing them before the package is issued is the single most effective thing you can do to keep the quote close to the budget.
If you want a shop’s read on a package before it goes out, that is a conversation worth having early. Prestige Construction and Contracting manufactures architectural millwork and commercial casework locally rather than importing it, for builders and designers across the Edmonton area. You can reach us through prestigeincorporated.com.
