Choose the responsibility model
- Managed service
- Confirm supplier ownership and exactly which installation, care, replacement and removal tasks the recurring fee covers.
- Owner purchase plus vendor care
- Separate routine visits from replacements, irrigation repairs and callouts; confirm the warranty exclusions.
- In-house care
- Assign trained staff, equipment, reporting, holiday cover and escalation to a specialist when needed.
- Hybrid care
- Draw a boundary between everyday care and specialist systems. Name the person who notices and reports a fault even when another party repairs it.
Build the service allowance from tasks
Walk the service route. Count plants and assemblies, check water access, lifting requirements, restricted hours and the time needed to inspect containment. Obtain a task-based visit schedule from the supplier and annualize quoted charges. In-house costs include staff time, training, equipment, supervision and cover; do not add staff as an afterthought to an apparently low per-floor-area cost.
Make response and replacement terms explicit
- Tasks and frequency for watering, pruning, pest monitoring, cleaning and system checks.
- Replacement conditions, exclusions, approval process and responsibility for disposal.
- Urgent response, access arrangements and reporting for leaks or failures.
- Insurance evidence, contract review dates, escalation, termination and removal terms.
Set response times, warranty duration and staffing with the parties for this project. No generic standard, premium tier or minimum staffing ratio is established here.
Normalize the quote
A per-visit charge multiplied by the agreed annual visit count is an annual service allowance, not an installed price. A wall-area unit refers to planted vertical area, not building floor area. Add separately priced repairs, utilities and replacements once; keep unknown exclusions unpriced.
Open the living-wall bid-comparison guide and editable workbook. Record included, separately priced, excluded and unknown scope before comparing complete totals. An unknown owner cost is not zero and must prevent a complete ranking.
Carry the agreement into handover
Provide the plant and assembly schedule, care instructions, water-containment responsibilities, as-built system information and named contacts. Confirm how staff record condition and how the owner reviews the service agreement as planting matures.
For a living wall, retain repeatable canopy readings and the controller schedule at handover so care staff can investigate a thinning pocket against the original record.