Patrick

@K78 Very short :Yes !!!

I just rediscovered this thread and have to agree. What @Russdl Has done here inspire me to do my own DIY demolition from February onwards. Loads of fun. Easy enough to do (as it was entirely timber frame). And as far as council goes= I did hand in a method statement, which I written myself. It was accepted but never ever checked in situ. I have no idea if I followed it so far as I written it and send it off and never had a look at it since. +1 for council cuts making the council check less. as long as you're good with the neighbours, which is always key to anything.

@LA3222 fair play to you . I agree with most, but with the plot price inclusion. Most common agreement on Build Costs/sqm is that it should include everything (like you said -every cost that occured) related to building something apart from the purchase of the Land. If the land was purchased with part building on it or with services in place, in my opinion this would probably be a minority of builds(apart from renovations) , it gets more difficult to calculate. Like you said , it always needs context , otherwise pure price comparison/sqm is pointless.

I would be already thankfull if the UK would adapt sqm into the property game in general. No matter how. It seems to be a quite exotic thing to give sqm or price/sqm with built houses/flats , which is ridiculous . Pricing on basis of Bedrooms is a system i can not wrap my head around . It just doesnt make any sense to me why anyone would ever accept this (i can perfectly see the point when selling stuff) In terms of how to measure sqm in houses, i always was under the general impression that it s a widespread acceptable method to measure living space (excluding utility, garages ) by simply multiplying wall lengths, and taking sloping ceiling into account as : everything between 1.5m-2m counts 1/2 , everything under 1.5m is 0 . This works quite well , but the main point is that everybody needs to stick to 1 system , cause the confusion arises with separate systems of calculting and/or measuring are used.

@JSHarris ok, i remebered some of the story correctly ?.

This is the type of stuff that makes a great big difference in final buidling costs as well. I was starting off into this adventure long time ago and without the help of Buildhub, so overpaid (in my opinion) on Architects Design and Planning Advisor. Should have not done it this way and now I can see that many done it differently , I surely could have saved 3-5000£ , but would have could have should have, we learn from mistakes.

AGREE This is why i tried to seperate all the costs in labour and materials , and with both trying to get down to sqm prices. Difficult to calculate , very often "it depend" but thats the case with everything in consturction.

I agree. Windows are difficult. Ashp seems a decent idea. With the right price, I'm sure many on here would be convinced to buy a slightly different model than they planning too, so can narrow it down to 1-2 usefull brands /sizes. And I'm sure there is negotiation space should you come in with a order of e.g. 10 units. Plus shipping should be a piece of cake @JSHarris Paid something like 800£ for shipping from Denmark if I remember correctly - should maybe be double for 10 units but not much more.

Sorry, not helpful, but this looks nasty. Can't figure out where the photo is from? Floor?sorry. Just edited: I can see, these are tiles. Had the same ones in my ex council house. Nothing to worry about them, just a bastard to take out sometimes.

@Ferdinand I do agree with mostly everything that you say. Like mentioned in our conversation, I do think that it is essential to setup a slim and easy to use admin system first, before going into which items are/would be beneficial for XYZ members. Once agreed on basic items where the interest is big enough, the logistics can be handled and also a quite important factor is the handling of funds. It could be for example for each project, like the example you named :SageGlass, that it is the group(like mentioned 5-30 ppl_) who decides a central enough memeber with some storage space to receive the delivery and store the materials for X amount of time. Should a few members be able to store the goods, it can be split and several drop-offs by Lorry company do not cost a lot more than single drop offs. I just started an Airtable to play around with the Idea and Invite anybody to comment on possible changes/alterations . Remember , this is a try out an d might not result in anything and also by no means I am meant to dictate anything here, therefore just PM me if you would like to have admin rights in order to open up you own sub-group for materials in this. I started off with siberian larch boards because 1. I need it ? 2. It s an easy to order and easy to store product 3. Many people need it 4.It seems suitable as a trial product before heading into higher value items. Even though this is against some of the points that Ferdinand mentioned and that I agree with ( 5-7 and the "low hanging fruits" part) - It s my starting point. I suggest @Ferdinand that you send me a PM with your email so i can give you admin rights straight away so you can for example start a second group for Sageglass or anything that you find helpfull. We keep the discussion on here, just easier to make overviews on Airtable (again, if someone has a better choice to organise this, please let this be known on here) this is a "view only" link. to get the edit or admin rights, just send me PM and access is free for anybody interested https://airtable.com/invite/l?inviteId=invwDqSNSqh51Rcl8&inviteToken=ba887f0a6581fa911f1ee46c9869b51db30ffd26d9897ba2ae820735cdaf717a

@K78 as far as I remember, you need to sign up on sketchup homepage first (they call their online platform trimble), and than you can chose the download (should be a dmg /mac file available there) I ll have a look tomorrow how exactly it works.

Talking about German preferences, I am currently on holiday in the old home country and what I can say strikes me a lot(careful, generalisation) There seems to be a lot more "stuff" made in Germany (but also in Switzerland, Austria or Poland, where I also spend a lot of time). The amount of small to middle manufacturers outside the UK seems to be huge, while in the UK I am constantly under the impression that my choice of "stuff" is either custom made - high price- or imported mass produced. With some exception of large factories. But the amount of medium to large size production is extremely little in my perception and all the infos I read and all the opinions on here seem to support that impression. Which I find a little scary tbh. @JSHarris all the stats you pull are generally supporting my impression.

I'm starting off this topic as it has been mentioned on this forum various time :Combined material orders. I have organsied something similar for roofing materials and since have become engaged with the roofing company as well as some door/ window manufacturer, but would not want to start being a distributor for every single item I am planning to order. I just very often get quite good offers for whole truckloads of timber or tiles and just can't make use of it as I am missing the storage. Maybe some members on here are interested in saving substantial % of their orders by ordering material early and storing it (for others) and therefore combining purchase power. I am aware of the logistics problems that arise with it as well of the warranty and payment issues. It s not for the savety/security driven builders but more for the risk-takers on here. This is not me offering to organise all of this neither saying that I got the best connections/offers but I think that a lot of members on here stumbled (by accident or not) across a great offer(e.g. Half a container of tiles, Oak flooring by the truckload or anything remotely similar) that was just too much to take by themselves. I do also think that one-off or fire sales are not suitable as you would need to react and buy quickly, making it difficult to coordinate with potential other interested parties. It could be organised via some shared platform like Airtable. Depending on amount of interest I might just start a Buildhub Airtable, but mainly want to see what opinions are like and have others input or initiative.

Bought my current kitchen on ebay auction from the owners who had an extension plus kitchen refurbishment done for unholy amounts of money. Old kitchen was around 8 years old, proper wood and went on a 1£auction. My winning bid at the end was something like 250£ including granite sink and neff oven/hob. Had to fit a new worktop and buy a tap, but that was about it, so my whole kitchen cost me approx. 650£incl.a days work by a joiner who fitted the worktop perfectly. I would always do this again and if I had a spare 1000£ to spend, let a joiner refurb the cupboard doors and drawers. I do think that average kitchen prices are obcene and would never spent this much, but others are on different budgets and I guess at some point you are paying more for the all inclusive service then the actual materials. But I am always looking on ebay and I find top quality timber kitchens for between 300-1000£ all day every day. "secret trick" from my joiner - repaint it and change the handles and it s a brand new kitchen. Paint and quality handles shouldn't set you back too much.

@AnonymousBosch Might be worth spending a few more days reading up on SPONS again.

@Redoctober I ment exactly Labour only what you mentioned. As experienced Builder, you might be able to estimate how many hours each tasks takes(after all, that's how your price comes together if quoting for a job), but as amateur it is more difficult to see how many hours X task will approximately take. As this is highly individual (not 2 kitchens in this world take the same time to install), it should be possible to break it down into units. Bricklaying was an example of how this is already done in reality. Same can be done with all other bits. Only missing the data atm, so this would be handy.

@PeterW I didn't find SPONS very helpful for this tbh, but might just be me being to stupid for it. I will have a look at your costbook to see wether that helps. Thanks.

I was very hopeful opening this thread to see wether it includes man-hours, work hours. I was, before, looking for an estimate of work going into different parts of the building and found information rare and very difficult to find. As mentioned in any costing topic on here, this all is obviously "depends on", but as prices vary so much depending on your specifications and the area, I found it easier to calculate materials separate from worked hours. materials prices are easy to calculate, but without a huge amount of experience, it is more difficult to calculate man hours. I could find some information about bricklaying Hours needed per sqm of dingle skin / double skin, blocks vs. Bricks and so on and will add this as soon as I find it again. More difficult to find info about laying first fix plumbing or first fix electric. There are (very rough) estimators around what these things cost, but hours used would be much more useful I guess. Has anyone come across an article, report, topic on a forum or similar that relates to man hours in construction?

+1 for Dropbox. Your cloud does it as well. (either apple or Google) Mega.nz is decent and there are a few others similar.

@jamieled Where about in the UK are you?

@jamieled Are you buying UK larch or getting roundwood abroad? Central Europe had a quite bad bug season and Larch is suffering. Prices are a bit high atm. But than, UK always is a bit of a drop in quality (and prices normally seem to be very high all the time)

@Temp Very usefull links. I will use this as well. @jamieled How long is your wall that larch can not cover the entire house? There are some serious lengths available. Unless you're 2 storey of course.

I read a lot about structural warranties in this forum and how it is not worth the paper it s written on. I do pretty much agree and think, if the house is build by myself, I can pretty much estimate myself how solid it is. Problems arise when/if I want to sell or mortgage it. Wether within the 10years or later. Currently it's not planned at all, but I know how my life changed in the last 10 years, so would never even try to predict the next. problem are the prices for structural warranty. Had 4-5quotes. All came in around the 3k mark. according to other people's experience that s pretty average and nothing to expensive. But would not like to spent these amounts for a "maybe I could need it, maybe not, will see" situation. So I thought I look and get a better idea what a retrospective Structural warranty would cost. there is a lot of talk (on here) about these. But nobody seems to have done one. Any experiences? Any price comparison. I have contacted the two companies that @Temp Named in another topic. Both want a shear endless amount of documentation for my (imaginative) new build house before they can quote. So will be a bit difficult to get prices out of them. just would like to get an idea about the price difference between regular structural warranty and retrospective. Any experiences?

Not exactly a current discount offer, but I just had news breaking that Lidl is going to sell all their warehouse leftovers (stuff where only 4-5items are left in each district-so not worth it collecting them to redistribute to stores) in 4-5 selected stores(mostly the stores next to their warehouses). The offer will reduce items to fixed price from 20p-20£ max. For example they had a few TVs that sold for 200quid on black Friday which will come out for 20£. So it s going to be huge discounts, just to get rid of excess stock. should start in end of August /beginning of September and will be a weekly ongoing thing. I know of Bristol Avonmouth and Weston super mare store being on the list of getting this allocation. Might need some further investigation to find out which Lidl in your area gets blessed with this. Thursdays is the day (apparently) when the stock will be coming out. So I will keep my eyes open and report back.

So do around 83mil. Germans, 9 mil. Austrians and 9 million Swiss. I did not understand outward opening windows at all for year, but now I can see 1-2 advantages. Still would not have them anywhere near my house.