Do I need a Quantity Surveyor?

[montecristo]

I am building a small house and am struggling to understand the value of a QS. Some of the people I need are easy to justify (e.g. structural engineer) but even QSes themselves can't tell me concisely what their purpose is. I would prefer not to pay for an estimate that is just informational. And it doesn't seem, including from other threads on this forum, that the estimates guarantee lower costs - they don't have a magic downward effect on builders' quotes. And the QSes I've talked to are not keen, or non-committal, on managing tender negotiations. Even if they did, I can’t afford to pay someone to just do the admin part of tendering.

 

How does a QS provide value? Can I do without one?

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, montecristo said:

I am building a small house and am struggling to understand the value of a QS.

[...]

How does a QS provide value? Can I do without one?

 

Quantity Surveying is about risk reduction. In the context of house building, the smaller the budget, the greater the need

A quick search on this discussion group shows the following....  a wet evening's quiet reading by the fire side. As usual, everyone else says it better than I can.

[SuperJohnG]

I'm interested to understand more also what value. 

 

My job is in Sales (I'm actually an engineer) a lot of my time is spent building large scale proposals from a few hundred k to £10+million. A very large part being understanding costs as we are bespoke project business not all of it has been done before and we need to estimate costs. But I can be working on lots of quotes at once but cant finish them all hence I need to price quickly.

 

What my aim is when I am pricing is to reduce our exposure to risk as a business. If it costs more than I estimate then I eat up my margin...if I have really messed up I chew the margin up and then I'm essentially completely  losing money. 

 

For me deciding on whether or not you need a QS is just the same..how much risk can you expose yourself to? I.e. can you suck up a 20% contingency?  Or does it need to come in on budget? If you want to mitigate the risk of going over budget early on then get a QS or if you feel confident enough in your own  abilities then do without.  This is where I am in limbo...as I'm very confident in my budgeting and contingency planning (10%) but sometimes....you just dont know what you dont know...

 

A bigger area for worrying about costs would be utilities and professional fees and finance costs.  These are the things that will blind side you. 

[Vijay]

For me, will a QS really get you the best prices? Yes it's easier to go to one supplier and get everything priced but if you're willing to spend time emailing/calling for best prices, you can save money

[montecristo]

12 hours ago, SuperJohnG said:

For me deciding on whether or not you need a QS is just the same..how much risk can you expose yourself to? I.e. can you suck up a 20% contingency?  Or does it need to come in on budget?

 

Would that 'twere so simple - QSes don't see cost reduction as their job. The best explanation I've had from a QS of what they do is that someone needs to list the 500 items you'll need for construction, and that's what they do. Without that list, builders will price inaccurately because they're guessing (and prefer to use their time building than quoting). I get that, it seems like that would lead to possibly lower and probably more predictable quotes. But the builders will price however they want, and any negotiating is down to the client or PM. What the QS does is give you a detailed shopping list.

[gc100]

I'm self managing a project build and paying for peoples time. I got a couple of different QS studies done - one high level by a well known commercial QS locally , and a online service that broke everything down detail. I'm not particularly confident with either to be honest other than a ballpark rough estimate - I can see both easily being off by 20% or more.

 

There are just so many variables in play when building, from where you source the materials, to unknown issues (in the ground, services, etc), quality, thermal efficiency, etc, etc . I just don't think a QS can ever 'price' all these factors in accurately.

 

I honestly think the best guess is actually coming from the architect in terms of cost/m2. I have a large contingency pot so I don't stress too much. Its going to cost what it costs unless I compromise on quality. I would just say its 90% chance its going to cost more than you think.

[montecristo]

gc100, I accept that the QS estimate of cost won't be very accurate. I don't need one, or want to pay for one, just to forecast the budget. As you say, it will cost what it costs. But is it useful to have the QS make a list of what items are required? i.e. even if the QS gave no prices at all, does it help the contractors to have an itemized list, leading to lower quotes from contractors, or quotes that don't get raised during construction when contractors find out they had underestimated the requirements?

[Bitpipe]

2 minutes ago, montecristo said:

gc100, I accept that the QS estimate of cost won't be very accurate. I don't need one, or want to pay for one, just to forecast the budget. As you say, it will cost what it costs. But is it useful to have the QS make a list of what items are required? i.e. even if the QS gave no prices at all, does it help the contractors to have an itemized list, leading to lower quotes from contractors, or quotes that don't get raised during construction when contractors find out they had underestimated the requirements?

 

I had a QS draw up a detailed cost plan before starting and it certainly made getting quotes easier as all of the quantities were calculated & itemised. Also was able to use the default costings as a guide and 'price to beat' when finalising quotes.

 

 

[SuperJohnG]

One architect who came out to visit me recommended using a QS early on. The reason being that you have that itemised list throughout the build it might not be entirely accurate, but she said when costs start to run away you can very quickly identify cost savings and things to take off your list in order to steer the budget back in the right direction. Rather than having a panic and making rash decisions. 

[Dreadnaught]

A helpful thread like this deserves a mention of SPONS: https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Spon's_Price_Book.

 

My own view on QS's based on my experience preparing my current project was that, as I was using a somewhat unconventional building approach (timber frame and near-passivehaus, etc.) that the output from the QS may not resemble reality.

 

The world of building is dominated by larger projects. QSs are part of the suite of consultants who attend them and that suite is what the entire industry is geared around. As I researched my project, I learnt that this suite was pretty well ill-suited to a single one-off bespoke house run by a self-builder. The usual fragmentation of the project into architect, QS, contract administrator, project manager, and the various engineers, etc., means that each individual parts becomes too small for each profession. It is barely worth their effort. And there are really no generalists who cover all the roles for self-builders.

 

I also support the idea that an QS creates the mother-of-all shopping lists but are only helpful in terms of budget by setting a tentative ceiling. 

 

For tendering, I plan to work hard on producing tender with my architect's help packs for each chunk of my build. I believe a good tender pack leads to a smooth tendering process and can help achieve lower prices by reducing the need for the bidder to pad the bid because of the risk generated by vagueness and a lack of precision.

 

For my budget, I tendered for many of the big items early on in my project (some a year before I obtained planning), and so increased the chance that my evolving budget will be born out in reality but I am still constantly re-iterating my budget as new information becomes available to me. I mark each line item with my level of confidence for it.

 

Its like flying a plane under a bridge. Hands firmly on the controls!