Almost every interior quote names a board grade somewhere. Very few name it per zone — and that difference is the whole thing, because once the shutters are on you cannot tell which zone got which board. A grade written against each zone is checkable against a document you signed. A grade written once is a sentence.
Not because anyone is necessarily dishonest, but because a single project-level grade is unverifiable by construction — and unverifiable specifications drift in one direction.
Reviewed by Pradeep Kumar Vasadi, Principal — on-site execution and delivery.
Once carcasses are assembled and shutters are fitted, the board inside is invisible without taking something apart. The moment to fix this is at quotation, not at handover — and the only tool that works is a document naming what goes where.
If a quote must come down, the rational place to reduce is where nobody will look: the carcass behind the shutter, the box under the sink. A project-level grade leaves that entirely available.
A kitchen carcass under a sink and a bedroom TV unit do not face the same conditions. Specifying both identically means paying for moisture resistance where nothing wet will happen, or accepting an ordinary board where water will. Usually both, in the same project.
A carcass warranty offered against no stated grade does not say what it covers. Ours is conditional on the signed grade precisely so that it attaches to something specific rather than to goodwill.
General guidance, not a specification for your project — the right split depends on your building, your climate and how you live. A coastal Vizag flat and a dry inland site are different problems. The board comparisons themselves are covered in detail in our material guides; this is about which zones deserve which treatment.
| Zone | Exposure | Why it is specified that way |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen carcass — sink run | Highest | Persistent damp, occasional leaks, and the one place a failure is both likely and expensive to reach |
| Kitchen carcass — dry run | Moderate | Heat and steam but no standing water; often specified below the sink run without loss |
| Vanity and washbasin units | High | Splash and standing humidity in an enclosed, poorly ventilated room |
| Utility and laundry | High | Water, detergent and floor washing; the lower carcass takes the worst of it |
| Wardrobe carcass | Low to moderate | Usually dry, but an external wall in a humid or coastal building changes this materially |
| TV unit, study, workstations | Low | Dry throughout; specifying moisture resistance here is spending in the wrong room |
| Pooja and display units | Low | Dry, but visible — the money here goes into finish and detail rather than into the substrate |
The test is not whether a firm can produce a Bill of Quantities. It is whether the BOQ says enough that you could hold someone to it.
Zone named, quantity, unit, rate, board grade, and hardware by brand and series. Six fields, and you can walk on site and verify most of them. That is the entire standard.
“Wardrobe: 1 no.” with a price. There is nothing in it to be wrong about, which is exactly the problem — it cannot be breached because it does not say anything.
Major hardware brands span a wide quality range, and the series is where the money and the lifespan sit. A BOQ naming a brand but no series has specified a logo. Ask for the series on hinges, channels and any soft-close mechanism.
Any line marked as-per-site or to-be-decided is a line that will be resolved later, under time pressure, usually downward. Settle them before signing or agree in writing how they will be priced when they are settled.
Quantities move on every project. What separates a real BOQ from a nominal one is whether the document says what happens to the price and the date when they do.
These take a minute and they tell you more than the total does. A quote that survives all four is comparable with another one; a quote that fails them cannot be compared with anything.
Or does it say “modular kitchen” and a number? If no grade appears anywhere, nothing about the material has been promised.
One grade for the project cannot be audited on site. Per zone can. This is the question that separates most quotes.
Brand alone spans a wide range. The series is the specification, and it is where the difference in feel and lifespan actually lives.
Those are the lines that get resolved after you have committed. Count them, and settle them before signing.
Apply these to us too. This page exists because we make the grade-per-zone claim on a dozen pages across this site, and a claim without a destination is just a phrase. If you receive a BOQ from us that fails any of the four questions above, that is a fair thing to raise, and we would rather you raised it at quotation than discovered it at handover.
The BOQ names the board grade for each zone separately — kitchen carcass, wardrobe, vanity, TV unit, utility — rather than once for the whole project. It is the difference between a specification you can audit and a sentence you cannot.
It is unverifiable once shutters are on, it leaves hidden zones as the cheapest place to save, and it is wrong somewhere by definition, because a sink run and a TV unit do not face the same conditions.
Does any line name a grade; is it per zone or once; is hardware named by brand and series; and is any line “as per site”. Four questions, one minute.
Generally the wet ones — kitchen sink run, vanities, utility, and lower carcasses on washed floors. Dry zones like TV units and study joinery usually do not, and paying for it there is money better spent elsewhere.
On our contracts, yes — the carcass warranty is conditional on the signed grade. A warranty offered against no stated grade does not say what it covers.
Usually it redistributes rather than adds — moisture resistance where moisture is, not where it is not. It can look more expensive than a lump sum that was never going to deliver what you assumed, which is a comparison problem rather than a price one.
If you are holding a quote from anyone — us or otherwise — run the four questions over it first. If it fails them and you would like a second one that does not, send the scope and we will return an itemised BOQ with quantities, rates, hardware named by brand and series, and grade stated against each zone.