Why one pool cage quote says $15,000 and the next says $35,000

9 October 2026

Two quotes sit on the kitchen counter. Same aluminum enclosure, same week, same walk around the same deck. One number is less than half the other, and neither sheet explains itself.

You are not imagining the spread. One homeowner described being quoted $30,000 by one company and $36,000 by the next after a beam was replaced, then walking away from both. Another described a $15,000 quote and a $35,000 quote on what looked like the same job. Those are their cages and their numbers, not our prices, and no article can tell you what your cage costs.

Here is the part that helps. A gap that wide is almost never two companies pricing the same work. It is two companies pricing different work and printing one total each. Nine lines account for most of it. A pool cage rescreen or rebuild is a list, not a lump sum, and once both sheets carry the same list they compare.

Which mesh, and whether every wall gets the same one

Screen is not one product. The common patio weave is 18/14. A tighter no-see-um weave stops smaller insects and moves less air. Heavier weaves cost more per roll and take more care to stretch flat.

Then there is placement. One quote might put a tougher mesh on the lower panels where dogs, chairs and pool poles hit it, and a standard weave above. Another does the whole cage in one mesh. Both are defensible. Neither is the same job as the other.

Ask each sheet to name the mesh and say which walls it lands on. If your cage already gives out faster on one exposure, mention it while the estimator is standing there, because screens that fail on one side first change what should go back up.

Every fastener, or only the ones that already failed

A cage is held together by hundreds of screws. Sun, salt and years of movement work on all of them at once, not only the rusted ones you can see from the deck.

One quote may include pulling and replacing every fastener in the structure. Another may cover the ones that are visibly gone and leave the rest. The second number is lower. It is also a different job, and the screws it left behind are the same age as the screws it pulled.

Get a scope sentence out of both. All fasteners replaced and failed fasteners replaced sit two words apart on paper and a long way apart on the deck. A cage on a Cape Coral canal and one inland in Lehigh Acres do not age at the same rate, and two estimators can weigh that differently.

Straightening a bent upright versus cutting it out

Frame work is where the spread gets wide fast. An upright that is bowed but sound can sometimes be reset and re-anchored. One corroded through at the base plate comes out, and a new one goes in.

From the deck those two look like the same symptom. One estimator writes repair, the other writes replace, and both were looking at the same post.

Ask which uprights and beams each quote is touching, by location. Two uprights on the west wall is a scope. Frame repairs as needed is not. It is a decision made later, and later is after you have chosen.

The door, its hinges, its closer and its latch

The door is a small part of the cage and a large part of the complaints. It is the only part of the structure that moves, so it is the part that stops working first.

Some quotes rescreen the door with everything else and leave the frame and hardware alone. Some replace hardware only. Some replace the whole door assembly. All three are real answers, and three different numbers.

Open and close the door while the estimator is with you. If it drags, sticks, or sits crooked in the frame, point at it right then, and get the answer onto the sheet in words instead of a nod.

Roof panels, and why they do not price like wall panels

The screen overhead is not a wider version of a wall panel. It carries its own weight plus whatever lands on it, and putting it in means working at height over water.

A quote that rescreens the walls only is a real job and a smaller number. One that includes the roof is a real job and a bigger one. Both promise you a rescreened cage.

Count the roof panels yourself before anybody arrives, then ask each company whether the roof is in the total. If you have not settled how much mesh to touch at all, patching panels versus a full rescreen is the cheaper question to settle first.

Who carries the old screen off the property

A full rescreen makes a pile. Old mesh, old spline, bent trim, spent fasteners, and the wrapping the new rolls came in. Somebody loads it and somebody pays to dump it.

Tear-out and haul-away is a line item, and one of the quietest differences between two sheets. A quote that leaves the debris by your side gate is cheaper than one that takes it away. It is also a Saturday you did not plan on.

Ask it plainly. Does the crew haul everything off when they leave, and is that inside the number.

Whether drawings are in the number or billed later

Some cage work gets drawn before it gets built. A replacement structure, a changed footprint, a different roof line. A drawing carries its own cost and its own calendar, and it comes before anyone fastens anything down.

One quote may fold drawings into the total. Another quotes the build alone and invoices separately when a drawing gets ordered. The totals differ partly because one of them is not finished.

Ask each company whether drawings are included, excluded, or not part of the work as they scoped it. Any of the three can be the honest answer. You only need to know which one you are buying.

Who files the paperwork and who meets the inspector

This one is rarely written down, and it moves the number more than homeowners expect. Filing takes somebody a morning. Standing on the deck when an inspector comes to look takes somebody an afternoon.

We handle the paperwork and meet the inspector on site. Other companies divide that up differently, and how they divide it shows up in the total. Nothing about that is hidden. It just tends to live in a conversation instead of on the sheet.

So put it on the sheet. Ask who files, who attends, and whether both are inside the number.

What a workmanship warranty covers, and what it never reaches

Here is where two sheets read the same and mean different things. Materials carry whatever the manufacturer offers. Workmanship is the part the company itself stands behind: the stretch of the mesh, the spline, the fasteners, the joints it put together.

Ours is a two year workmanship warranty. Whatever the sheet in front of you says, ask for the covered items listed in words, not just a length of time at the bottom. A term with nothing under it is a number, not a promise.

Then ask what ends it. Cleaning method, a later patch by somebody else, storm damage. Those answers belong in writing next to the covered items.

The low number, the change order, and the third quote

Should you just take the low one? Take it if the scope printed on it is the scope you want. A low number on a small scope is honest work honestly priced. A number that climbs halfway through was a different scope from the start, and the nine lines above are how you tell the two apart.

Why did one company quote a repair and the other a replacement? Usually because one got on a ladder and one did not. Ask each estimator what they climbed, touched and pulled on. That one question explains more spreads than any other.

Do you need a third quote? Not if the first two are finally written in the same units. Two comparable sheets beat five vague ones. If they still will not line up after all nine questions, get one more, and hand that company the same list first.

Cheapest is not a scope. It is a total with a scope hiding behind it, and the scope is what you are buying. Get both quotes into the same units, compare the totals after that, and the decision usually makes itself. We walk cages in Fort Myers, Cape Coral, North Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres, and we write these lines out before we give anybody a number. Tell us what your cage is doing and we will come look at it.

Call (239) 357-7182