What should I bring to a site meeting with a contractor?
A measured floor plan, the takeoff for each room, a list of doors and windows, photos of the surfaces, your questions written down — and something to take minutes on. The meeting usually lasts under an hour; the preparation decides what that hour is worth.
Short answer: bring a floor plan with measurements, the takeoff for each room (net wall area, floor and ceiling area, ceiling height), a list of every door and window with width, height and position, photos of the surfaces, your budget and timeline, and a written list of questions. Take minutes as you go, and send them to the contractor the same day — it's the minutes, not the conversation, both of you will remember in three weeks' time.
What a site meeting is — and isn't
A site meeting is where the job turns into an agreement. It might be the walkthrough before the quote, the kickoff meeting before work starts, or a progress meeting partway through. What they all have in common is that decisions get made that cost money — and those decisions are usually made standing in a room while someone points at a wall.
It isn't a place where you need to know the trade. You need to know your home: what's there, how big it is, what you want, and what you won't pay for. Everything else is the contractor's job.
What to bring
1. A floor plan with measurements
Ideally on paper, A4 or A3, so you can both write on it together. A floor plan means you're talking about the same room — "that wall over there" becomes "the wall between the kitchen and utility room", and the arrows you draw on it are still there tomorrow.
The drawing needs internal measurements: wall to wall, the way you'd measure with a tape. Not the area from the official property register — that's measured externally and comes out larger, because the outer walls are counted in.
2. The takeoff for each room
One line per room is enough: "Living room: 15.1 m² floor, 15.1 m² ceiling, 33.8 m² net wall, ceiling height 2.47–2.51 m, 1 window, 2 doors." Net wall area is the wall area minus doors and windows — the figure the painter and the plasterer actually price against.
With the takeoff in hand, the contractor can price on the spot instead of promising to get back to you. That's often the difference between a figure the same day and a ten-day wait.
3. The list of doors and windows
Every opening with width, height, sill height, and the distance to the nearest corner. Openings decide more than people expect: how many linear metres of skirting are needed, how many reveals need lining, whether a door can swing open, and whether the radiator can stay where it is.
4. Photos of the surfaces
Two or three shots per room of the walls, floor and any damage. If you need to talk about a room you're not standing in right now — the basement, the loft, the bathroom — photos are the only thing that makes the conversation concrete.
5. Your budget and your timeline
Say a number. Many people keep the budget hidden, believing the price will come in lower that way; in practice it leads to quotes that miss the mark entirely, and to two extra rounds of back-and-forth. If you say where your ceiling is and when the work needs to be finished, the contractor can tell you what's possible within that ceiling — and what isn't.
6. A written list of questions
You'll forget half your questions if you haven't written them down. The section "Questions worth bringing" below gives you a starting point.
7. Something to take minutes on
Phone, notepad, anything. What matters is that it gets written down while you're standing there.
Questions worth bringing
- Is this a binding quote or a rough estimate? A quote is a fixed price the contractor is bound by. An estimate can move.
- Is the price final — including tax and materials? Always ask; this is one of the most common misunderstandings.
- What's not included in the price? This is often where budgets slip.
- What does extra work cost per hour, and when will you contact me? Agree on a threshold above which you need to be asked before work continues.
- How many working days will it take, and when can you start?
- Who cleans up and disposes of waste?
- What do I need to prepare myself, and by when does the room need to be cleared?
- How is payment structured? Instalments along the way or on completion — and what triggers each payment?
- Who's my point of contact day to day?
- What happens if you find something unexpected behind a wall or under the floor?
For larger jobs, most countries have a well-known, standardised form of contract for building work between a homeowner and a contractor. It rarely applies automatically — it has to be agreed in writing. If you're unsure what applies to your particular agreement, ask a professional; this isn't legal advice.
The minutes are the meeting's most important output
Write down five things for every decision: what was decided, where (which room, which wall), who is doing it, when, and what it costs. If the price isn't known yet, write "price to follow" — that keeps the item open for when you next meet.
Send the minutes to the contractor the same day, with a line like: "Here's my summary of today's meeting. Let me know if I've misunderstood anything." This isn't just formality. It's the cheapest insurance in the whole project — and most contractors welcome it, because it also protects them from being misremembered.
The one question the meeting can't settle
Whether a wall is load-bearing. Neither a contractor at a site meeting, a tape measure, nor a LiDAR scan can determine that with certainty — a scan measures a wall's thickness and position, not what's resting on it. If a wall needs to be removed or broken through, that calls for a structural surveyor or an engineer — and work like that generally needs approval from the authorities before it starts. Write it in the minutes as an open item rather than leaving an assumption standing.
How to have the paperwork ready without losing an evening
A floor plan, a takeoff and a door-and-window list can, of course, be done by hand with a tape measure and a sheet of graph paper. Budget 10–20 minutes per room.
HouseSense pulls all three into a single PDF. Scan your home with LiDAR on an iPhone Pro, and you get a measured floor plan, a takeoff with net wall areas (doors and windows subtracted), floor and ceiling areas and ceiling heights, plus a window-and-door schedule with each opening's size and position. You can send the PDF ahead of the meeting and pull the floor plan up on screen while you talk, so you can correct the figures on the spot if something measures differently on the day.
And bring it on paper too. A screen can't be drawn on with a pencil by two people at once — and that's exactly what a site meeting is for.