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Hi all - I'm hoping to get some advice on the below! We are currently in the process of renovating our 1 bed basement flat in London (zone 2). We have received planning approval to remove the old conservatory at the back of the house and replace it with a flat roof structure which will house the kitchen. This involves altering the internal layout of the flat as shown in the floorplans. The footprint of the house is staying exactly the same, it is 600sqft for reference. To complicate matters, our flat flooded during the flash flooding in London last summer so it has currently been stripped back to brick as part of the insurance repair works and drying out process. The flat is now completely dried out and we have put the job out to tender. We have just received quotes from builders to put the flat back together as per the proposed plans. When we received the quotes, I literally fell off my chair. The three quotes were: £270k, £353k and £403k. I am honestly in a state of shock. I'm fully aware that London building costs are unlike anywhere else in the country and that the cost of raw materials has shot up this year, however, these are on another level. I could buy another flat for that last quote! All 3 builders that quoted were aware of the fact that part of this work will be covered by our insurance claim. However, the majority of it won't be i.e. the removal of the conservatory, the change of layout etc. Am I being totally ripped off because they are aware it's an insurance job? I can't understand how someone can physically spend that much money on a 600sqft flat when the footprint of the house isn't changing and we aren't building any new walls! Unless I was coating every ceiling in gold leaf! Any advice would be much appreciated!

I'm trying to understand the economics of a self build better and want to understand how to better predict £/m2 pricing. Obviously the complexity, design features, material choices will have an immense impact on price but for the sake of this arguments let me simplify it to a cost for a watertight shell (finished render exterior & doors and windows). What would be more expensive: A 200m2 single storey house or A 200m2 1.75 storey dwelling with a ground floor area of 100m2. To me the answer is obvious the first will be more expensive due to the larger foundations roof etc. However, by how much? I am looking at a plot that has planning permission for a rectangular 4 bed 1.75 dwelling (200m2 roughly) and I'm straggling to understand how to price it correctly per m2. Location: outside Edinburgh by-pass, preferred construction method: ICF. I've budgeted about £110 - 130k so far for a water tight shell with me working PM'ing a contractor to reach that stage but maybe i'm day dreaming.

Hi, I’ve just been asked to price a job up in an industrial unit which consists mostly of 190 mm solid blocks (22 newtons) and that is the type and size of block which has been stipulated must be used. I was just wondering if anyone has any recent experience of walling these and knows an estimate price that I should be charging the customer for them walled per m2 as I haven’t come across this type of size block before? Cheers

I have been looking at tiles over recent weeks and keep getting drawn to images of mosaic tiles made by a Spanish company, Dune. However, no matter where I look, they all seem to be exactly the same price (for one of them, poeme, they are £24.72 per sheet). Is there any super secret sneakily cheap supplier of these that anyone knows about? Is it worth trying to track them down in Spain and import tiles from there? I think the latter may be a non-starter as I'm not sure I will need/be able to afford sufficient of these to justify the transport costs. Incidentally, I know that Porcelanosa usually have a sale around October time, but does anyone know if this tends to be early or late in the month?

I'm always keeping an eye on induction hobs as this is what I eventually plan to have in our new house. A really interesting (to me!) article is in the latest issue of Which? They compared a best buy Samsung NZ63J977OEK at £799 with a New World IHF60T at £254. The Samsung got a score of 80% whilst the New World got 79%. Barely a gnat's whisker between the two for performance (Which? comment that the Samsung is slightly quicker) but a whopping price differential. The cheapest current supplier for the New World is Argos.

£17.64 for a 6m length of rebar - £2.64 per meter? Or am I being a skin-flint? signed Outraged of Lancaster.

Here it is: as accurate as I can get it. No pretense of getting it done cheaper than anyone else. Just the raw numbers and a few words to explain context if necessary (why did I buy a chain-hoist for example). Yes, you'll probably get it cheaper. That's excellent. The point is openness and telling it like it is. March 2014 Home Building and Renovation Show NEC: £100, including fuel and tickets Phone calls about £15:00 extra, and about £70:00 fuel. July 2014 Land: already owned Planner: £1050, plus £70 initial consultation fee, (in cash). LPA Outline Planning Application fee £770 Phone calls: about £15:00 extra, and about £50:00 fuel. August 2014 Ecologist: £1390.15 (works out at about £1 per Great Crested Newt – a further £2000 budgeted for. But see below June 2016) November 2014 Topographical Survey: £540 January 2015 Trips to Timber frame companies and various local suppliers : £50 fuel Subscriptions to various magazines: £70(ish) February 2015 Architect: £4000 (design plus all other matters up to and including submission for Full PP application) QS: £630 – feasibility study Legal: £360; altering title LPA fees: £385 Structural Engineer: £1782; foundations calculations Land registry Fee: £40 Contamination Desk Study and Geophysics : £1260 (plus possible indeterminate decontamination costs) Phone calls: about £20:00 extra, and very little fuel. March 2015 Discharge of Conditions Fee £97.00 Health and Safety Services are being handled for free by a colleague: I’m coding his website in exchange. Notice: no site insurance yet……. :huh: I’m just too mean. Projected cost £568.65 (May 2015) August 2015 Architects fees £2000; from award of Outline PP to Full PP (6th of August) and £40 for bottle of champagne to thank our him: his judgement in relation to what would pass was exactly right. Read paragraph 9 of the Delegated Report (here) Trip to Swindon to visit the NSBRC Fuel £36, overnight stay £85 Strimmer: Polycut head, and set of knives for strimmer £46.60. (No lawn for Salamander Cottage: at last, no mowing…… bliss) September 2015 Legal Fees; alteration to title status £232 October Purchase a four wheel trailer (new) £2500 Purchase a Mutts Nuts (Nick’s term, not mine) Bosch Laser Level £250 First Aid Course (ref. H+S policy) £80 Chainsaw Course £130 December Off mains drainage legal agreement Legal fees and £1000 for access to the land to discharge to stream (wayleave?): £1862 (£300 over budget) Cladding Preparation for processing the wood; Serious Stihl saw (660) and ancillary equipment £2000 (resale value £1000) Trips to open passivhauses £50 + Off – road parking (ground matz) £2800 (resale value £2500) January 2016 SPONS Architects and Builders’ Price Guide 2016. Can’t do without it. And there’s an App that goes with it. £150 Small shipping container (for tools) £300 (resale value £400) Base for container: 4 tons of 20 mm to dust from my mate: £35, yep £35 New wheelbarrow £97 (French made Hammerlin: two flat tyres (in 2 weeks) and a stupidly forward C of G so the damn thing tips forward ON ITS OWN... sodding thing) Local Oak trees (for the shakes and cladding) £1200 (1 square meter of oak shakes retails for £100!) T.K Knipe Allithwaite. £100s of pounds worth of free advice. 1 Sweet Chestnut tree (high tannin content) £140 5 local oak trees £100 (they were going to be cut up for fire wood - I kid you not) Another container (you can't have too many): £1000 (resale value £1000) February 2016 Small hand tools and boys toys £1500 May 2016 2.5 tonne Mini Digger = £14,000 (PV Dobsons, Levens) EPS Licence £1200 (I still haven't paid the bill - because of some really unprofessional behaviour.) Red Diesel £15 120 meters of Temporary Amphibian Fencing (TAF), 80 stakes (37 by 37 by 700) £267.37 Lifting gear: a 2 tonne chain block and tackle 2 shackles, and two beam clamps £181.03 (to run on the RSJs below) 2 RSJs, (6 meters long to span between the two containers) £230 +VAT Filing frame to assist sharpening my chainsaw chains £97 Site signage (ebay) £10 for several (more needed) Plastic Barrier Fencing Safety Mesh Fence Netting Net With Metal Pins £50.95 (for the edge of the car park and pedestrian walkway) Three stillage cages to store material on the site (one cage fitted inside the container) £50 Another two stillage cages today. £25 And £80 worth of 2 inch wire mesh so I can weld it to the stillage cages: slows light fingers down Two (full-on-big-boys) deck brooms £24 A grease gun for my digger and two cartridges of grease £22 Another High Security Digital padlock and hardened, sheathed, hardened chain to secure the buckets (that aren't hooked up) for my digger £55 A 2 Tonne x 1.5 meter Leverhoist £79.95 2 off 2 tonne Beam Clamps £25.98 4 off 2 Ton Alloy Bow Shackles, with Safety Pins £11.96 The above is initially for lifting trees and heavy objects safely off the trailer (on my own) Later the hoist and clamps will do the same job, but in a small purpose-built workshop. 100 meters of 16 amp electricity cable. £71.89 Building Control Fees £600 Red Diesel £18.21 June 2016 Two more stillage cages £25 A Douglas Fir tree and a Larch tree. £40 (Fir tree £10) Will produce stock worth about double that (conservative estimate) 20 8" coach screws £4. 4 sheets of reinforcing mesh £20 (16 by 8 foot for welding to the stillage cages to slow down thieves ) Structural Engineer £1774. And worth every penny (so far) First Aid Kit (10 person HSE Approved) £7.57 (tried getting one locally, couldn't get one for love nor money) Security marker pens £1.99 (a requirement of the Site Insurance: all scaffolding poles must be security marked - not the digger or the saws!) "Curiouser and curiouser" Wood for lining my container £81 HERAS panels, feet, clips, struts, pins for the struts £200 Some steel stock to practise welding £12 (making a small tool table for my SuperJaws clamp: cost on the open market £30) Four Point Lifting Chains ('shorten-able') £139. Fed up of worrying about the webbing strops - they are quite worn already Site H+S sign. £24 ( and I begrudge every penny: it's expensive wallpaper... why do I say that - read on - last but one point) 2 tins of Hammerite for the rust spots on the container. £28 The ecologist had the good grace to halve his bill given the less than prompt approach to fulfilling his contract. £900 July Builder's Merchant bill: £704 - bits and bobs, sand 25mm water pipe and stuff like that August Builder's Merchant bill: < £100 all sorts of tiny things September Builder's Merchants bill £1379.24, Ply wood for the stillage and to make some internal storage in the container, a DeWalt nailer (luxury beyond compare) It starts to get serious now........... Piling will be about £6000, Groundwork price yet to come in, site clearance - I've hired a lumberjack who's coming from Canada - muscles coming out of his ears - off mains drainage and site drainage.... Off to Harrogate next week. (4th of November)

There are several threads here discussing buying from elsewhere in Europe, because you get better value, and, in some cases, a greater choice or better quality products. I've just been looking at the price for a part for our MVHR, a "Sommerbox" that is a 5 minute slot-in replacement for the heat exchanger to gain better cooling in the summer. I got hold of the part number from Genvex (who are always very helpful, BTW) but Genvex don't sell direct so I asked two of their suppliers for prices. Here are the prices for comparison: UK supplier - unit price £174.00 inc VAT for the part, plus £30.00 inc VAT for delivery, giving a total of £204.00 inc VAT Danish supplier - unit price £128.82 inc, VAT for the part plus £62.48 inc VAT for delivery, giving a total of £191.40 inc VAT Now this was a VAT reclaimable item (I think), so the ex VAT prices including delivery would be: UK supplier - total price = £170.00 Danish supplier - total price = £153.12 Looking at just the unit price, ex-VAT, as the Danish supplier has to charge more for delivery to the UK, whereas the UK supplier presumably gets better rates for bulk shipment, then the prices are: UK supplier - part only price, ex-VAT = £145.00 Danish supplier - part only price, ex-VAT = £103.06 Given that both the UK and the Danish supplier are authorised Genvex dealers, and so are almost certainly getting the same sort of price from Genvex, what's the justification for the UK unit price being 40% higher than the Danish supplier price? My understanding is that the cost of living, doing business etc in Denmark is similar to the UK, may even be a bit higher, as their VAT rate is 25%, rather than our 20%. The only conclusion I can reach is that the UK supplier is upping the price because they can, which is most probably because people aren't shopping around to get a better price.