Three quotes that disagree are usually three different repairs.
Nobody explains this, so a board ends up comparing a number against a number and choosing the middle one. Here they are in the order a quote should consider them, cheapest first — which is the order that is honest rather than the order that is profitable.
01
Leave it and monitor
When it is right
Crazing with no crack through the body, no displacement, and no path for water into the wall. Recorded, photographed, and looked at again at the next inspection.
What it cannot do
Not an option if the report has flagged the unit as a falling hazard. That is a different conversation and it starts with the engineer, not with us.
Plate that takes this route
02
Patch repair
When it is right
Shallow spalling on a sound body, glaze intact around the damage, and roughly under a fifth of the visible face. Cementitious repair mortar, built up and tooled to the original profile.
What it cannot do
A patch cannot restore a lost arris or a drip, and it will not carry a load. If the profile has gone, a patch gives back the shape without the function.
Plate that takes this route
03
Replacement in kind
When it is right
The profile is lost, the unit is cracked through, or the elevation is a landmark one where a substitute would not be approved. Moulded from a surviving unit and fired here.
What it cannot do
The most expensive route and the longest. Ten to fourteen weeks from mould to delivery, and a landmark facade adds permit review on top of that.
Plates that take this route
04
Cast stone or GFRC
When it is right
Above the sightline, on a non-landmark elevation, where the unit's job is shape rather than surface. A third of the cost of fired replacement.
What it cannot do
It is not terra cotta and it does not weather like it. Put one at eye level or next to an original and the difference is obvious within two years.
Plate that takes this route
The one nobody quotes for
Crazing is the single most common thing we are asked to replace and the single most common thing that does not need replacing. A craze is in the glaze; a crack is through the body. They photograph almost identically and they are not remotely the same problem. If a contractor has quoted to replace crazed units, ask which one they found.