Is this estimate for one bathroom? Has any work begun? Do you have a contract? If you do have a contract, I would speak to a lawyer about how to get out of it. The cost for my three bathrooms including materials and labor does not exceed $50K and I am in Maryland where labor prices are really high. That price include materials. 4ft x 6ft is the size of my smallest shower. That seems exceptionally high. I don't think it costs $50k to put in a completely new bathroom where one did not exist before. I would get new estimates before allowing any work to start on this contract.

Good luck!

I'm at 30K, but my bathroom is only 5 x 10. My 30K includes gutting the original bathroom, building a 4 x 5 shower, tiling floors, walls 4' high, new double vanity with Kohler sinks and faucets, Bain Ultra tub, Grohe shower system, Panasonic Whisper Warm, Gerber toilet, Toto washlet, two Robern medicine cabinets, and a bunch of other stuff. The labor cost is half of my budget. I expect that one or two things will creep up and I may be in to it for just a bit more, but not much.

I don't know what you are having done or where you live, but $50K sounds high. But my brother who lives in Boston has a tiny bathroom, wasn't doing much to it and got pricing of 50-80K without fixtures.

Yes, you should probably get another quote if you can. I'm not an expert on contract law, so can't help you there.

You have 3 business days to rescind a contract. Any reputable contractor would let you out regardless.
Donna

This sounds excessive to me, especially since it does not include your flooring. I would get another quote, and break it down so you can see your cost of materials. You can save a lot buying your own fixtures, etc.

It is not high, as my price is over that, and i have done significant shopping for fixtures, etc...My breakdown is the following:
Bertch Semi-custom Vanity 84" with matching surface mount medicine cabinets.
2 Kohler undermount sinks
Kohler Portrait Toilet
Kohler Portrait Tub
Kohler Finial Traditional facusets-2
Kohler Finial Roman Tub Faucet
Grohe retro rainshower head
Grohe Thermosatic Valves
grohe Movario Handshower
Grohe control valves and trim
200sf porcelain tile
green and honey onxy border tile
green and honey onyx chairrail
4 recessed lights
all labor and paint
1/2" glass surround
North of 50k

Thanks so much everyone for the responses. I know I just am in sticker shock right now and am kicking my self for signing the darn thing without getting a couple other estimates. The main thing that set me freaking out is our tub materials is about $ 4,300 and his install of just the tub is another $ 3,300 on top of that. Now, it is cast iron and has to come up the stairs but that amazed me and I started to think what exactly is his markup. I've got a call in to him now to see if anything can be done. Thanks again.

Wow, that is crazy. My sister bought a 3000 sq ft home in NC for 210K (and that has 3 full baths). Not to sound mean, but Ohio? Things are generally bad in that part of the country for jobs and the economy. That is all I hear on the news. It seems these contractors must still be living high on the hog and have not realized the boom is bust. Prices must come down, or they will starve. I have stopped that craziness by getting labor only prices. Buy 100% of the fixtures and tile, this way you can eliminate the contractors charging you $300 an hour for labor. And $50-$80K for hardly any work being done in a small bathroom with no fixtures??? I guess they do a handful of jobs a year, and take the rest of the year off?

I'm in the NY metro area (fairly far north but westchester county pricing has crept up here) and I'm at around $20k at the moment for an approximately 100 sf bathroom. I will probably be pushing $25k when all is said and done and except for the tile, it felt like I did a lot of splurging. I also bought all of my fixtures on my own and shopped the hell out of things - it took about 6 months for me to amass my "stuff" (also helped spread the cost out a bit) but you can probably pay a few thousand more and get things more quickly.

We have a cast iron clawfoot tub coming and it won't be $3300 to install it! Even though it has to go up a narrow flight of stairs, it's still only a few hour job. A few extra hundred if he has to hire someone to help get it up the stairs, I am hoping that between the plumber, GC and the guys on the truck that won't be necessary.

It's crazy how wildly prices vary though, especially when things are left more nebulous. We just replaced our boiler and the prices were all over the map. I figured labor at $100/hr and priced out all of the parts and some of those guys had built a $3000-5000 profit in on TOP of the $100/hr for a promised 3 day job (for two guys, one a helper so probably not being paid $100/hr). It took some doing and a lot of asking around but the guy we went with did a fantastic job at about 30% less than the nearest competition. He was recommended by our village building inspector. I think the attitude that we were going to do this no matter what sort of hurt us as some of these guys were assuming the job was a gimme IMO.

Wow, $3000-5K profit on a 3 day job? This guys makes more than all off us. We should have been contractors. One should spend the money and buy the necessary tools, learn, and do more jobs themselves. The reality is these guys have too much work so they can throw around crazy prices knowing some sucker will probably pay it. So they make a major windfall. They are too busy to jump into the run of the mill competively priced jobs. I personally cannot wait for them to pay the piper with the looming recession, and force them into competition and competitive bidding. With the banking lock down on refinacing, at some point, they will be forced to be competitive, go out of business, etc. Again, I CANNOT wait for this to happen. I have been sickened by all of them over the past 10 years from crazy prices, crap work, not returning calls, bad customer service, hiring cheap mexicans and reaping the profit. Yes, I am bitter because I have experienced this all first hand. And I want amnesty, so the mexicans are legal and can openly and legally establish their own landscaping companies, roofers, etc and drive the current owners out of business. Manual labor needs to be put back into reality in this country. In my neighborhood, the white man hiring the illegals makes more than the local family doctor, has a bigger home, and drives fancier cars?

There are many abusing pricing and people. And anyone abusing people, shame on them, they will burn in hell.

But there are many that are consistent, know their costs, and what they need to make honest profit to earn a living and provide for their family. The key is to find these ones. For contractors doing work full time, there are many things that go into pricing that people do not consider or appreciate. There are all the trips to tile stores, HD, etc. Loading sheets of wonderboard and bags of thinset at Home Depot at 6:00am. Someone is doing these things. It is more than just the hours at the jobsite. All the gas costs. All the time to clean out work vehicles from the days work. Vehicle maintenance costs, oil changes, registration fees. There are health care costs. All the time running around giving free estimates, and advice in the evenings or on weekends. It is not all gravy, and really, it is hard work. And when sick or hurt, there is no paycheck. And when days are taken off, there is no income. All this ultimately makes up the pricing.

And it is NO different with any company. Microsoft may pay an employee $40 an hour in paycheck salary, but that cost is really $140 an hour to Microsoft's bottom line, when you add in benefits, a 401K, pension, sick pay, vacation time. So this $40 an hour microsoft employee really makes $140 an hour (other benefits have a monetary value to the employee). It is the loaded labor rate. For a contractor, it is their billable rate.

The market is what it is. And everything is in cycles. Welcome to America. I agree that a recession will hurt contractors. But if high demand has allowed high pricing, so be it. This is the American way....and THANK GOD for this. I would rather have it this way, than be living in a dobe mud shack in Iran and peeing/ crapping in a trench running in front of my home.

Naturally, part timers are a different animal because they have the benefit of a base salary and benefits.

Oh I understand the concept of it costing more than just the hourly wage someone takes home. I work in an area where I am billed at 3 times my hourly wage and that doesn't even include health insurance (but the overhead for my boss is still much higher than what he just pays out in salaries). But I sat down and figured out what things should cost for this job from a reality check point of view. I researched the cost of all of the parts and as I said, figured $200/hr for labor for two guys (really around here a plumber gets around $75/hr and helpers less but I was just using round numbers).

The guy who had $5k of additional profit built in (his quote was $5k over the guy we went with) was the highly recommended guy by my ex plumber and I believe that he thought the job was his to quote whatever he wanted. The plumber was in on it too (doing the plumbing part of it) so I guess they both had to have their cut. Besides the sticker shock on the price, what REALLY made me look around was how hard they kept protesting that the price was fair. If it's fair, you don't need to tell me every day. That's when I sat down and started running some numbers myself.

The guy we went with was just fantastic, did just an incredible job, pleasant to talk to, is very smart, knows his stuff, thinks about how to solve problems before diving into them, comes when he says he will, cleaned up at the end of the job and overall was a pleasure to work with. We are considering putting central a/c in the upstairs of our house and I probably won't even comparison shop and go with him - he lives 2 blocks from my house and thrives on local recommendations and does great work. That's what he earned by doing a good job for a fair price and I would not hesitate to recommend him to anyone.

It was still an expensive job but by the time we got to the end of it I REALLY felt like I had gotten what I paid for and that's a good feeling even if you are writing checks for thousands and thousands of dollars. That's what it boils down to with the OP. Maybe after some research they will find out that they are, in fact, getting something reasonable and fair for their money. At 45 miles away you need to add 2 hrs of travel time every day to the cost. There's no way to find out unless you start to comparison shop. The lowest bid isn't always best either - that's something important to remember.

I couldnt bear to read all the replies--did read portions. Too painful.
My short, quick, direct answer to the questioned post is yes---a BIG, Resounding , 'yes'.
It is the answer you were anticipating.
Don't blame politics...Take responsibility.

Donna, unless you are a lawyer licensed in Ohio, it's not a good idea to give legal advice, i.e., 'you have 3 days to cancel a contract'. Contract law changes from state to state. Are you an Illinois lawyer?
It would have been better to advise the aggrieved party to contact an Ohio lawyer immediately.

Luckily the contractor is willing to amend the contract. We'll be able to cut way back on it. Thanks again to all who posted. Whew!

bev-west,
No, I am not a lawyer nor am I a contractor, a designer or a architect. I have advised on many issues regarding the above trades. I was suggesting this as an option, of course clempton would have to check the laws in her state.
Donna

Here is a link that might be useful: 3 day cancellation rule

Clemton, That is good news. Problem solved.

Donna, You may or may not get money for your excellent and generous advice, but you are a superior designer and probably a superb contractor too. I am sure that many 'day job' designers started their careers by doing their own homes first. I very much admire your work.

I apologize for the harshness in my remarks.

bev-west,

Thank you for your kind words. I felt bad for clemton and was trying to help. Remodeling can be very stressful as we all know. I never even signed a contract with my bathroom contractor. I've used him before and we trusted each other. I was lucky it all went well.
Donna

Labor costs - a really good reason to DIY if you have the skills.

Fortunately DH and I do, so we're DIY'ing.
So far our costs for our 72 sq ft master bath is $12259, and we haven't bought plywood for floor, hardibacker, or drywall, nor light sconces. My original estimate, before looking at prices of most things was about $8K, so I'm way over that. Our big splurge is on tile - $4K, which is massively over my original estimate. But my house is worth, in resale terms, a pretty decent bath, and I make really good money and since about two months ago I've been working about 13 hours overtime a week, and that should continue for a while, so I'll be able to pay for everything from overtime pay. Of course since I'm working so much overtime during the week, and I babysit my grandson two weekday evening a week, we're only working on the bath on the weekends, so it's slow going.