Why this matters more than the number
A management committee approving facade cleaning is spending common property funds under a duty of care. When someone at the owners' meeting asks what exactly are we buying, "NT$280,000" is not an answer.
The thirteen fields below are what turns a price into a document the committee can defend.
The 13 fields
1. Site information. Address, building name, storey count, facade area, cladding materials by elevation.
2. Scope — what is included and what is not. Explicitly both. The exclusions list is where disputes originate.
3. Pricing structure. Unit rate, lump sum, or formula. Stated, not implied.
4. The basis of measurement. Facade surface area in m², or a storey basis. And how that figure was derived — facade area on an articulated building is not perimeter × height.
5. Total, with tax status. Whether the figure includes or excludes tax, stated on the document.
6. Programme duration. Working days, and what happens if weather extends it.
7. Cleaning agent and pressure specification. Which agent, at what pressure, on which material. This is the field that protects the building fabric.
8. Insurance certificates, attached. Not referenced — attached. Public liability and employer's liability, with sums insured, validity dates and the named insured legible.
9. Payment terms. Schedule and milestones.
10. Default remedies. What happens if the contractor does not perform, and what happens if you cancel.
11. Warranty period. See below on what a reasonable warranty covers.
12. Ongoing support. What year two looks like, and at what rate.
13. Company credentials and references. Registration, operating licences, and comparable buildings you can contact.
A quote missing any one of these is incomplete, and asking for the missing field is a reasonable request, not a difficult one.
The three pricing structures
| Structure | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Unit rate (NT$/m²) | Transparent, directly comparable | Total unknown until area is fixed |
| Lump sum | Budget certainty | Hides what is inside it; high-priced items can ride along |
| Formula (rate × stated area) | Both inputs verifiable | Requires the area to be measured properly |
Ask every bidder for both a unit rate and a lump sum. Then reconcile: does unit rate × stated area equal the lump sum? Where it does not, something unexplained sits in between, and asking about the gap usually surfaces it.
Formula pricing is the most checkable of the three, because both inputs are things you can independently verify. Our own facade health check is quoted this way — NT$35/m² × facade surface area on a three-year contract covering three surveys, or NT$25/m² for a single survey — precisely so a committee can reproduce the arithmetic.
Three red flags
"Bespoke quotation", no itemisation. There is nothing commercially sensitive about stating area, method, agent and inclusions. Refusal to itemise is a transparency problem, and a committee cannot approve what it cannot explain.
No insurance certificate attached. Without it there is no established basis for a claim. Contractors who carry proper cover attach it without being asked twice; the delay itself is informative.
No warranty clause. If the facade is incompletely cleaned and there is no written remedy, you have no position.
Any one of these is grounds to exclude, and excluding on them is far cheaper than discovering the reason later.
What a reasonable warranty covers
Two things get conflated here, and it is worth separating them in the clause.
Quality warranty — reasonable and standard. If inspection after completion finds areas incompletely cleaned, they are redone at no charge.
Warranty against re-soiling — not reasonable, and a contractor offering it is offering something they cannot deliver. Facades get dirty again. What can reasonably be offered is a maintenance plan at agreed rates so the cycle is predictable.
If a quote promises the second, read the rest of it more carefully.
A note on sequencing
One field is worth adding to the thirteen if your building is over about twenty years old: has anyone established what condition the facade is in?
Cleaning quotes price the removal of dirt. They do not tell you whether tiles are debonding behind it, and on an older tiled facade that is the question with consequences. A committee that commissions a survey before a clean is scoping from evidence; one that commissions a clean is scoping from appearance.
We keep the two separate deliberately — a diagnostic finding is not a commitment to sell treatment.
Book an asset assessment or call +886-2-7733-7678. Market rates by method are in the facade cleaning cost guide.
