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What should be in writing on a window replacement quote

The eleven items a Nicosia window quote should name in writing, how the payment stages work, and how extra work gets priced once the old frames are out.

8 min read

Window Replacement Quotes: What Should Be in Writing — illustrasjonsbilde

Photo: Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels

ByStavros Loizou· Editor, kitchens, bathrooms and finishes

Stavros covers the rooms that carry the most cost per square metre and the finishes that go into them. He tracks the order trades have to arrive in, which moves a Cypriot renovation bill further than any hourly rate does.

Published

A window quote you can act on has a schedule attached: every opening measured, located by room and elevation, priced on its own line. Three Nicosia suppliers pricing the same flat usually agree on the rate per unit and disagree on how many units there are and what happens around them. Get eleven things stated in writing, tie the money to the fitting rather than the order date, and agree what a surprise costs before anyone measures.

Why written scope matters

Windows are made to your openings, which changes the commercial relationship before work starts. A fabricator who has cut eleven frames to your measurements cannot resell one of them. That is why deposits are normal here, and why the document you sign before the deposit is the one that counts — after fabrication begins, the specification is fixed in aluminium.

The second reason is that the largest variable is invisible unless someone writes it down. In the 1970s to 1990s apartment blocks that dominate Strovolos and the Nicosia suburbs, frames were routinely built in as the blockwork went up. Getting one out means either cutting it free or levering it and taking render, plaster and sometimes tile with it — two prices, two programmes, two different trades on site afterwards. A quote saying "supply and fit" has quietly chosen one without telling you which.

Those figures are read from recorded quotes at page load rather than typed into this article, so they do not go stale here. They give a sense of scale, not a substitute for the schedule. Our window replacement pages break the range down further and the Nicosia area pages record what changes locally.

The eleven items a quote needs

  1. A schedule of openings. Each numbered, located by room and elevation, measured and priced separately. Without it you cannot tell whether the cheapest quote is cheaper per window or simply covering fewer of them. The bathroom fanlight and the store-room window are the usual omissions.
  2. The frame system, with thermal break stated plainly. Thermally broken aluminium separates the inner and outer profiles, which the single-profile aluminium in much older Cypriot stock does not. That step is the biggest single move in the price of a frame, and "quality aluminium" says nothing about it.
  3. The glass build-up, per elevation. Pane thicknesses, cavity and coating: clear, low-emissivity, solar control, laminated, acoustic. Performance comes from the coating and the cavity rather than the frame material. Nicosia sits inland and takes the widest temperature range on the island, so a west elevation and a north elevation want different glass — a supplier who asks which way each window faces is doing the job properly.
  4. Opening type and hardware per unit. Slider, casement, tilt-and-turn or fixed light, with handles, hinges and locking named. Tilt-and-turn is heavier and needs stronger fixings; a full-height veranda slider often needs two fitters for one leaf.
  5. Shutters, boxes, guides and motors. Almost every Cypriot window has an external roller shutter. Whether the box is kept, refurbished or replaced is one of the widest swings in the quote, and the item most often missing from the first draft.
  6. Insect screens, grilles and security bars. Refitted, replaced or not included. Households assume screens; fabricators do not always.
  7. Removal and disposal. Who takes the old frames out, who carries them down, whose skip. On a fourth floor with no lift that is a day of labour on its own.
  8. Fixing, sealing and weathering. How the frame is fixed back into concrete-and-block construction, what perimeter sealant is used, and whether there is a drip or flashing detail at the head.
  9. Sills and reveals, inside and out. Internal boards, external weathering, and the plaster, render, paint or tiling repaired around each opening. Making good is a plasterer's and a decorator's day, not a glazier's, and it is the commonest reason two quotes for the same windows are far apart.
  10. Access and the programme by elevation. Towers, platforms, hoisting, lift bookings, and which rooms are open on which days. In a block, add the committee's rules on working hours and lift use.
  11. The commercial terms. VAT rate and its basis, payment stages, an agreed rate for extra work, the three guarantee periods, and what you receive at handover.

Payment stages

Much of a window job is spent before anyone reaches your flat, so the money has a different shape from most renovation work.

  • A deposit at order, after the final survey. Note the order of those two. The quoted price comes from a sales measurement; the sizes sent to the workshop come from a final survey. Pay against the surveyed schedule.
  • A stage on delivery or on completion of fitting. Fitting normally runs elevation by elevation, so on a larger flat this can split across two visits.
  • A closing balance after making good and sign-off. Not when the glass is in: when the reveals are plastered, the render patched, the sills on, the shutters running and every unit opening and locking.

Beyond that deposit, the money should not run ahead of the work, and the closing balance has to be worth returning for — a trivial retention will not bring anyone back to adjust a sticking sash in October. Ask for each stage to be invoiced with the VAT rate shown rather than paid in cash against a note.

Variations and how they are priced

A variation is work outside the written schedule. In older Nicosia stock at least one is likely, and the honest planning assumption is that one opening will be worse than it looked from inside.

Agree a named rate first. An hourly or day rate for the fitter, and for the plasterer and decorator who follow, written in while you still have a choice of supplier.

Price it in writing before it happens. Described, priced and accepted — even by a message you both keep. Variations that first appear on the final invoice are the commonest source of disputes in domestic work, and they are avoidable.

Keep three categories apart. A discovery is a variation: a lintel in poor condition, a builder's opening several centimetres off the survey. A change of mind is a different sort — switching to solar-control glass after fabrication starts carries a real cost. An item that was always going to be needed but was never written down is neither; it is a gap in the original scope, worth saying so calmly at the time. Ask for variations to be tracked as they occur rather than arriving as one number at the end.

Red flags

  • One price for "the windows" with no schedule. Nobody can count the openings afterwards, including you.
  • The frame described by colour or brand but never as thermally broken or not, or one glass specification applied to every elevation of the flat without a word about orientation.
  • Making good absent in a block where the frames were built into the walls, or shutters mentioned nowhere on a property that plainly has them.
  • A deposit that is most of the total, stages set by dates rather than by survey, delivery and sign-off, or fabrication starting before a final survey.
  • One line saying the windows are guaranteed. There are normally three periods from three parties — frame, sealed unit, workmanship.
  • Cash only, no invoice, no VAT number.
  • A casual suggestion to widen an opening. Like-for-like replacement in existing openings leaves structure, layout and external appearance unchanged. Enlarging one, adding one or enclosing a veranda changes all three, which is a planning question and an engineer's question first — ETEK maintains the register of engineers and technical professionals in Cyprus.

If the windows form part of a larger renovation or a building upgrade claim, ask for the frame and glass performance stated in the form the scheme asks for. Minimum energy performance requirements for buildings and building elements are set nationally and administered by the Ministry of Energy, Commerce and Industry.

Common questions

How many quotes should I get, and what do I send them?

Three, all working from the same brief: a sketch with the openings numbered, your own rough measurements, which way each elevation faces, whether shutters and screens are staying, and the eleven items above as the points to address. Quotes answering one brief are comparable; quotes built from three separate site conversations are not.

The survey found the opening is not the size on the quote. Who pays?

That is what the final survey is for, and why the deposit should follow it. If the surveyed schedule differs from the sales schedule, the price should be restated before fabrication starts — the same difference found afterwards is a far more expensive conversation.

Do I need permission to replace my windows?

Like-for-like replacement in the existing openings leaves structure, layout and external appearance unchanged, so it does not engage planning control. Changing the size or position of an opening does, as does enclosing a veranda. In a block there is a separate question about the building's uniform appearance, settled by the management committee rather than by planning law.

Why is one of my three quotes so much lower?

Read the schedule instead of the total. Count the openings, check the thermal break, check the glass, then look for removal, making good, shutters, screens, sills and access. A non-broken profile with clear glass and making good excluded is cheaper to supply. It is not the same job.

Window replacement firms in the Nicosia district

7 companies covering this area.

Sources

  1. Tax Department — VAT rates and reduced-rate conditions — retrieved 2026-07-29
  2. Department of Town Planning and Housing — scope of planning control — retrieved 2026-07-29
  3. Ministry of Energy, Commerce and Industry — energy performance of buildings — retrieved 2026-07-29
  4. Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber (ETEK) — technical practice — retrieved 2026-07-29

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