Becky M

Sorry to jump in on this post, I read it and found it super helpful. We're a little green and about to tender for building contractors, our build budget is reasonable £170k tops - is a JCTHomeowner contract suitable for a project of this size? Thank you for your help.

Thanks Alphonsox, I commute into central Bristol every day from Parkway. Are you renovating somewhere currently?

Ahh that's lower Almondsbury, I'm the other side of the A38. It is nice there, we moved here for the Primary School and at the time we were looking there were very few properties on the market. The house we bought had 10 offers on it as the size of its plot meant it was very attractive to developers, luckily the then owners wanted it to go to a family so we were lucky and happy it became our home.

Hi JS Harris, What a helpful response - Thank you !! I really appreciate your comments above. If you don't mind I do have a couple of follow up questions, I understand your ponts about builders having an abundance of work, i guess i want to protect us from having a project that just gone and one for ages, with a builder then dipping out for weeks on end as he's committed to another project. We're not in a rush to have the work done but think (assuming no major curve balls happens during the project) that it would be approx 5 months work. So how do we try and ensure things don't just drag on? Or is that not possible to try and manage - unless you are on site every day, which with two full-time jobs and small children isn't always going to be possible. The other question was, do we as the client need to specifiy whether we want a fixed price or a firm price contract at the time of tendering? We hadn't heard of these different types. Please can we have the details of the broker so we can discuss renovation insurance please. Many Thanks for your help, Becky

Hi Hecateh, We're in Almondsbury! Do say hi!

Hi, We're about to renovate a 1960s four bed house that needs everything doing to it. When I say 'we' I mean we'll appoint one single contractor to do this. I hope I've posted this in the right place but I'd welcome some guidance on: 1 When you go out to tender to builders is there anything in particular I should request from them (aside from cost to complete work, availability to start etc). I'll be sending them the architects drawings, lighting schematic and schedule of works as produced by ourselves. 2 In terms of the contract that the chosen contractor is given, I want to ensure we have the right content within this. I wondered about indemnity warranties and a penalty clause relating to the building work going over agreed completion date (as we'll be leaving in rented accommodation so would want any quoted completion date to be realistic and ideally stuck to -within reason). 3 Finally, should we take out insurance relating to anything going wrong with the contractor? Or is this more for someone doing a self build? I'd never considered this before but spotted something on another thread which made me think about it.

Hello! First post here, I'm Becky, based in North Bristol and about to renovate a large 1960s house. We moved in pre Christmas and have been working with an architect up until now. He's just provided our plans to us and we're about to go out to tender to builders. The house is old and tired, with original carpets a la the Queen Vic pub! But we bought it for its location and lovely garden. Lots to do to it and we plan to move out as its going to have everything done to it. We've got twins of 4 and I wouldn't want to live in it whilst all that is going on...... So looking forward to learning from others here as from now on we'll be taking it forward ourselves.