Salamander Cottage

Great post.  It's frustrating that the entire building trade is so busy at the moment that even complete numpties and charlatans can make a living off those who don't (and indeed can't) know better.

Time and time again throughout our build a remark made by an army chap that worked for me years ago comes to mind, "Time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted".

I also became absolutely convinced that very few companies treated self-builders seriously, especially on the civil engineering side (and we had a LOT of that on our site).  As an example, I'd done a fair bit of research on gravity retaining walls, how they worked, how to calculate the various loads acting on them, etc, as originally I was thinking of building either a gabion or Permacrib retaining wall.  In the end, the wishes of the neighbour to have stone boundary wall on top ruled those systems out, so I had to get a structural engineer to design a vertical concrete retaining wall.  In fact I did the design first, to see what the cost would be, before going out to both retaining wall specialists and a few local structural engineers for quotes (I already had a full hydrogeological report detailing the strata beneath the site).

Quotes from SEs ranged from around £360 from a local chap, for a design, calculations, drawings, steel spec, etc (backed by his professional indemnity cover) to £1200 for an "initial sketch design, plus site visits at £250 each, as required, plus additional fees for steel specifications and working drawings" from another local firm.  Needless to say I rang the cheapest chap, he seemed a very competent and helpful bloke, said he knew the site well, as he'd already done some preliminary designs for a motor home secure parking area on there (for the previous owner).  He got the job, and produced a nice set of hand drawn sections, specifications, calculations and a steel specification table (clearly "old school", as he didn't even use email.........). 

Out of politeness I emailed all those who'd quoted but not won the job to tell them.  The most expensive firm, emailed me a questionaire, asking if I'd fill it in for feedback as to why they'd lost the job.  I did this, fairly and honestly, with the exception that they asked for the names and prices of the other quotes.  I thought it unethical to give names, but did agree to give approximate prices.  First I got a fairly rude phone call from a lady in their office saying that the other companies were all going to do a poor job (the second most expensive quote was around £700, IIRC) and then a day later I had one of the partners in the firm ring me, again telling me that I was taking a significant risk by not using them.  At this point I told him that I had double checked all the calculations, using the method in BS8002, BS5628 and Eurocode 7 and found them to be correct, so what was his problem?  He immediately changed tack and said "Why didn't you tell us that you had already done the engineering calculations?", from which I assumed that he originally thought I was a self-builder numptie that could be hoodwinked into paying three times the price.....................