Overbilling, a fragile company or technical errors: serious problems can hide behind a reassuring quote. ECV uses artificial intelligence to detect them before you sign.
Renovating a roof, converting a house or fitting out a shop often represents tens of thousands of euros. But what do we really know about the company we are about to entrust them to? Financial strength, insurance, guarantees, technical reliability: the price shown on the quote does not tell the whole story.
ECV — Euro Construct Verify — was created to fill that gap. It was developed by Wolfgang Sievert and his partner Christian Vicente, System Engineer and Lead AI & Algorithm Architect, in collaboration with a specialised law firm. After two and a half years of development, the application lets you photograph a quote or upload its PDF and receive an analysis within moments.
"People generally think a quote is just a matter of price. Yet for a private individual, building work is sometimes the project of a lifetime," says Wolfgang Sievert, founder of ECV and an adviser to companies and private clients for more than thirty years. The online application at www.ecvcheck.com will soon be available on the App Store and Google Play.
A quote put through its paces
Once the document is submitted, artificial intelligence extracts its information, which is then checked against hundreds of sources. Four AI models are involved in order to limit errors. Off-market prices, excessive quantities, double billing, forgotten work, unfavourable clauses, ten-year guarantee or the compatibility of materials: a great many parameters are checked. The user then receives a report with a reliability indicator ranging from red to green. "You take a photo of the quote and, within thirty seconds, you have an answer," Wolfgang Sievert sums up.
According to ECV, 80% of the quotes analysed show at least one problem: missing insurance or guarantee, poor financial reliability, imprecise quantities, problematic terms and conditions or technical shortcomings. And 60% are said to contain significant problems. The aim is not systematically to advise against the company, but to identify the points to clarify before signing.
When one detail changes everything
Wolfgang Sievert cites the case of a Spanish client who wanted to open a restaurant in a recently purchased building. Among five air-conditioning offers, he chose the cheapest, submitted by an apparently reputable company. The analysis revealed, however, that in order to hold its price, the installer intended to reuse pipework dating from before 2004-2005. Since the gases used today are different, that old installation risked no longer being sufficiently airtight.
"Without adaptation, it could have become catastrophic. Imagine having to redo the work in a restaurant that has just opened, with the loss of earnings that entails." Alerted, the client went back to the installer, who adapted the installation while keeping his price.
Another case: a company presenting itself as Belgian, with a registered office in Flanders. The analysis brought to light several worrying signals about its structure and financial capacity. The client ultimately walked away from the contract and chose a Brussels company for half the amount. Some 80,000 euros were initially at stake.
Check the company too
The quote is not everything. The soundness of the contractor is another essential element. "I have seen companies and private individuals ruin themselves, having to keep repaying a loan for unfinished work and borrow again to start it over," explains Wolfgang Sievert.
Particularly high deposits should prompt caution. They can signal fragile cash flow or a company that subcontracts a large share of its projects. For private individuals, who generally do not know where to find this data or how to interpret it, ECV translates it into a simple indicator. "In effect, we tell them: go ahead, or don't." For professionals or institutions, the analysis can be more detailed and flag certain administrative or tax anomalies.
A few euros to avoid the worst
Private individuals are ECV's main audience, but architects, surveyors and estate agents are already said to account for around 13% of analyses. In time, its founders want to develop a trust label for construction companies and work with insurers and institutions.
The principle remains simple: check before signing rather than discover the problems once the work has started. One analysis costs 15 euros, versus 29.90 euros for three and 50 euros for six. A modest expense when a quote can commit tens of thousands of euros. The goal: to give private individuals, before the deposit and the first hammer blow, information that until now was hard for them to access.
All information about ECV, together with the company's contact details, is available at ecvcheck.com and waterproofeurope.eu.
