Itemized Shade Quote Checklist

Every shade project in Southern California starts the same way: a homeowner in Eastvale, Corona, Riverside or Temecula collects two or three quotes, spreads them on the kitchen table, and discovers they cannot be compared. One is a single total on a business card. One lists a product name and nothing else. One reads like a factory build sheet. The totals differ, sometimes by a lot, and none of the paperwork explains why. This checklist fixes that. It is the list of lines a complete, honest quote for motorized screens or retractable awnings should carry, written so you can hold it next to any quote, from any company, and score what is actually there. A company that itemizes is telling you it expects to be checked. A company that will not itemize is telling you something too.

Start your own itemized quote by texting (909) 325-3110, or call Richard Gutierrez, Project Manager, at (949) 378-6642. Se habla español. AJ Shades is veteran-owned, our systems are American-made and premium, and our motors are Somfy-powered. Our free in-home estimate produces a written, line-by-line quote for your exact openings, and financing is available at 0% for 24 months for qualified buyers. We install across San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The core lines: sizes, housing, tracks and fabric by name

Start with the openings themselves. A real quote lists every opening separately, with its measured width and drop, because a wide patio opening in a Rancho Cucamonga backyard and a narrow side opening beside it are different products with different hardware. One combined measurement, or no measurements at all, means the quote was built on an estimate of your project rather than your project. Next, the housing and track type should be named: open roller or cassette housing for an awning, and for screens the side channels or tracks that hold the mesh edge, stated as included rather than assumed. Then the fabric or mesh: brand and line by name, weave and openness for screen mesh, and the exact color. In the Inland Empire, where west-facing glass in Eastvale and Jurupa Valley takes hours of direct afternoon sun, openness is not a cosmetic choice; it decides how the finished screen performs. A quote that says premium fabric without naming it has left the most important material decision unwritten, and our guide to comparing awning quotes walks through that comparison in more depth.

Motors, controls and sensors: one line per unit

Motorization is where lump sums hide the most. The quote should state the motor and control for each unit, not for the project as a whole: which openings get a remote, which get a wall switch, whether an app hub is included for phone and voice control, and which sensors are part of the job. Wind and sun sensors deserve their own line with the model named, because a sensor that retracts an awning during a Santa Ana wind event is a specific piece of hardware, not a vague promise of automation. Bundled language like controls included tells you nothing about how many remotes arrive on install day or whether the hub that connects everything is part of the price or a later add-on. Our companion guide on why motorized screen quotes vary explains how these control choices move one quote away from another even when the screens themselves look identical on paper. If a quote cannot tell you, unit by unit, how each screen is powered and operated, it is not finished yet.

Mounting, substrate and electrical: the install-day lines

A screen or awning is only as good as what it is bolted to, and Southern California homes offer every substrate there is: stucco over foam on newer tract homes in Chino and Ontario, masonry and stone columns on custom homes in Redlands and Yorba Linda, exposed wood beams on patio covers, and fascia or rim joists on older Riverside housing stock. The quote should name the mounting type, surface mount or recessed pocket, and the hardware matched to your actual substrate, plus any structural attachment review for wide or heavy units. Electrical scope belongs on the same page: where power comes from, what preparation is included, and who performs the work. Site adjustment and leveling also belong in writing, because patios across the Temecula Valley and the foothill neighborhoods of San Bernardino County are rarely perfectly level, and a screen track installed to an unlevel opening is a service call waiting to happen. None of these lines is exotic. All of them are where a low quote quietly becomes an install-day conversation about extras.

Compatibility, HOA support and the exclusions page

Many SoCal patios already have a structure: a solid patio cover, a pergola, or a louvered roof in a backyard in Murrieta or Lake Elsinore. A complete quote states whether custom frame adapters are needed to fit screens or an awning to that structure, and for louvered systems it should reflect a real compatibility check: blade positions open and closed against cassette placement, and drainage paths kept clear so the new housing does not redirect rainwater onto the patio. HOA handling is its own line. Planned communities across Eastvale, Corona, Chino Hills and Irvine often require architectural submittals before exterior work, so the quote should say whether HOA submittal support is included, excluded or handled by the homeowner. Finally, read the exclusions as carefully as the inclusions. Permits, HOA submittals and structural changes are commonly excluded, and that is fine when it is stated plainly. It is not fine when the exclusion surfaces after you have signed. A trustworthy quote also states whether removal and disposal of an old awning is included, the payment schedule, the quote validity date and how change orders are handled.

The warranty split: product, installation and each part

Warranty language is a checklist item, not a closing pleasantry. Ask for the split in writing: what covers the frame or housing, what covers the fabric or mesh, what covers the motor, and what covers the installation labor itself, because those terms are often different lengths and a single blended promise hides the shortest one. At AJ Shades the structure is simple to state: retractable awnings and motorized power screens carry a 15-year warranty, and we put the product and installation coverage in writing before you sign. That warranty is never attached to patio covers, which carry different coverage, and any quote that borrows a long warranty term from one product and implies it covers another should be questioned on the spot. Also ask who performs the install and who services the warranty locally. A warranty is only as useful as the company standing behind it in your county, and a quote should make that company easy to identify.

Red flags: the four fastest ways to spot a weak quote

After the checklist itself, the warning signs are short enough to memorize. First, a single-total quote with no breakdown: you cannot compare it, and that is the point. Second, unnamed fabric or mesh: premium is an adjective, not a material, and the substitution risk sits entirely with you. Third, no per-opening sizes: the quote was not built from measurements of your home, whatever the salesperson said at the door. Fourth, sensors bundled with no model named: automation you cannot identify is automation you cannot verify was installed. Add three softer signals from the wider checklist: no mention of electrical scope, no statement about permits or HOA handling, and no validity date, which often means the total is a moving target. One more practical test costs you nothing: ask each company to reissue its quote in itemized form and watch the response time. A company working from a real build sheet can produce the breakdown the same day, because the lines already exist in its system. A company working from a padded total has to invent the breakdown, and the delay, the vagueness or the refusal tells you how the rest of the project will be documented. Keep every version you receive; the paper trail is your leverage if a line quietly changes between the quote and the contract. None of this requires you to be an expert. It requires the paperwork to do the work, and any company confident in its product will hand you that paperwork without being asked twice. When you are ready for a quote built the way this checklist describes, the free estimate is the next step, and the financing headline stays the same: 0% for 24 months for qualified buyers, explained plainly in writing like everything else.