Hiring a PM for a selfbuild?

[Bitpipe]

5 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

1) Someone (a PM or QS) who can help you setup a project timeline, cost plan and help you find a main contractor at a reasonable price and set up a contract with them.

 

Just be aware that the concept of reasonable can vary between the purchaser and the vendor - QS will decompose your build into component tasks and materials and use Spons to incrementally build up a cost model. This will only ever be indicative  and materials and labour may well come in cheaper or more expensive  - highly dependent on local, national and International variables plus your own trade off between time and quality.

 

A main contractor will offset their own financial risk by either agreeing a cost plus or fixed price (with built in contingency).

 

5 minutes ago, Dan F said:

2) A good main contractor.  (Who won't necesairly cost any more than a PM hiring individual contractors, but unlike a PM will i) own the site ii) take on main contractor CDM responsibility iii) have a price/time commitment)

 

Yes however be aware using a single contractor will typically incur an overhead on the underlying costs (10-20%). They will also make their own decisions on how stuff gets done and what materials are used to do it (aside from finishes where you will have more input). You will not be consulted on every bag of cement or box of fixings purchased.

 

 

5 minutes ago, Dan F said:

If possible pay PM/QS by task/hours, and avoid them taking a % as a contract administrator. 

 

If you have a good main contractor you can trust and have agreed prices/formulas and a contract in place, I can't really see why you need all the meetings/valuations and other items you listed.  If you have a mortgage that needs a valuation, they'll send someone out to do this.

 

Unless you're building something very complicated and expensive, you will just need to leave them to get on with it and hope you have a good set of professionals who will do their best. If you try to impose micromanagement then there's a good chance they will walk - seems to be the number one gripe of all the trades we had on site.

1 hour ago, puntloos said:

 

So how would one distinguish between 'box ticking' vs 'high quality'?

 

Look, a professional will get a job done in the time allocated and the budget allowed. They will not agonise into the night whether they gave you enough options on your door handles or spent enough time hunting down the best possible deal on a box of glue to save you £5. 

 

1 hour ago, puntloos said:

There are private QSes - e.g. they only support selfbuilders - that do this for a living so presumably the service they offer is worth it for some people. Are you claiming those people are just gullible since a private QS might be sad if they get a negative 'findatrade.co.uk' rating but they can keep it up, and 'paying handsomely' is some type of king's ransom that nobody can afford?

 

No but I think you have an unrealistic expectation on how much above and beyond they will go for the fee you give them. Most will do a competent professional job that meets the requirements. If you want more you need to pay more but I'd suggest you're going to be spending more than you are saving at some point.

 

You've obviously not got to the stage yet of ringing 20 plastering / plumbing / electrical contractors and being told that nope - they don't want your £20k job as it will probably take too long and they can make more money doing 4 smaller jobs for £10k each. Or that they'd love to do it but their developer mate has just booked them for the next 12 months at short notice so if you still need them after that then great. Etc. Or even getting them to start and then they disappear for week sand you're begging them to get back to unblock the next trade who is ready to go. All part and parcel of the experience.

 

Keep in mind that self builders are a tiny fraction of the building market - majority are commercial & volume builds and then the smaller jobs like extensions and the like.

 

1 hour ago, puntloos said:

in this forum people are hoping to build for 1000/sqm, which indeed puts hiring a QS out of their range - at least, it would constitute an outsize cost to employ another dude(m/f) for this, perhaps I've got a slightly larger budget (of course I'd love 1000!) but less time.. surely a new balance exists..

 

I spent closer to £1500 /m2 - you only get well below that if you do a lot of work yourself or are prepared to take forever to get the build finished. If I were building today it would probably exceed £1750 as the pound is much weaker (most of my purchasing was pre Brexit).

 

1 hour ago, puntloos said:

How about this question: if your goal was to reach the same level of quality work as you did yourself, but could only spend 1/4 of the time on it, but have some extra budget for personnel -  how, and who would you pay to get this done? Or would you just give up?

 

I did very little actual work myself but organised all of the trades & sourced materials etc.  

 

I would just find the time - that's what weekends, evenings & lunch breaks are for. BTW, it's not as time consuming as you make out. Trades are not children, if you get the right ones, they do not need constant supervision - they do need clear instruction of what you want though and the ability to get hold of you asap if a snap decision needs to be made.

 

Self build is a big sacrifice of your finances, personal and professional life - it will consume you for the duration but at the end you have something special (hopefully).

[Bored Shopper]

3 hours ago, puntloos said:

2/ It's important to me, but I haven't done research, e.g. I know I want my doorhandles to be nice but don't have a strong opinion (yet) 

Quite often, you all of a sudden develop a strong opinion once someone researches 3x options and presents them  Normally you tend to opinion towards Option 4-6.

 

With regards to a main contractor, if you manage to find one who is

1) a solid pro with quality and excellence to show in a real-life (visitable!) portfolio of previous projects

2) who can be honest and transparent re their costs and mark-up (I'm yet to see one)

3) who have a high level of tolerance towards variations and won't ignore them

 

Then they're worth your 100% trust and you probably won't need a PM / QS.

 

Ideally your PM should not be too related to the main contractor to maintain a fresh outlook and not to trust him blindly - PM is paid by YOU so should work for YOU at all times rather than take Contractor's side in any arguments you may have. Quite often PMs tend to do the reverse (it's likely they won't see you for the rest of their life but they are highly likely to cross paths with your main contractor in their future projects, so they start taking sides (apart from your money) quite early on).

 

+1 to the above expressed opinion re keeping a PM on an hourly rate rather than a %. But they fight this.

[Dan F]

 

6 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

Yes however be aware using a single contractor will typically incur an overhead on the underlying costs (10-20%). They will also make their own decisions on how stuff gets done and what materials are used to do it (aside from finishes where you will have more input). You will not be consulted on every bag of cement or box of fixings purchased.

 

The costs all depend on who you use and what you agree. We're using a main contractor but only for "fit out" post timber-frame, so while there is a percentage for overheads and profit it's lower than you might expect across our whole build.   

 

How much a main contractor does/doesn't involve you depends on both what you have agreed and how they work, not all main contractors are the same and not all work on a fixed price closed-book basis where they make most of the decisions. I was very against working with a main contractor, until we found someone that agreed to just do fit-out, has reasonable costs and didn't insist on charging a % on groundworks or frame.  Also we get on very well with him and we're comfortable that he'll ensure quality, consult on the important items and allow us to be as involved as needed, but not bother us if he needs to order bags of cement.

 

Are we spending a bit more using a main contractor post-frame rather than PMing ourselves?  Yes, we almost certainaly are.  But, having someone that's run this type of project multiple times before will mean the process goes more smoothly and is completed a bit quicker.   If you consider this means i) less risk/stress on us ii) that we'll save a potentially significant amount on rent and iii) I'm less likely to loose my job because I'm too distracted on the build then for us, in balance, it's worth spending this bit extra.

 

I beleive that the right way to run a build depends on everyones own personal situation: budget, skills, interest, work/family situation and if they are in a caravan or paying rent every month etc.

 

[Bitpipe]

2 hours ago, Dan F said:

I beleive that the right way to run a build depends on everyones own personal situation: budget, skills, interest, work/family situation and if they are in a caravan or paying rent every month etc.

 

Completely agree - it's the cost / quality / time triangle - if you can afford it then you can get good quality in short time - which can make its own cost saving.

 

We were not in a massive rush as living on-site our costs were fixed. We were lucky in having very good trades for the post frame fit out that did not need overarching supervision - sounds like you've been similarly lucky and I hope it works out as you expect.

 

Are you leaving all purchasing decisions to them or do you have a clear spec on, for example, bathroom fit out etc and how will you check you're getting the best price etc.

 

By way of example, we made a very last minute decision to put electric underfloor heating in the bathrooms. Electrician was able to put in conduit and back boxes at the last minute and after some discussion on this forum, I picked up very cost effective kit on eBay and one of the heating superstores - i.e. the mats, stats, insulated board, fixings & laytex, tanking kit etc.. It was all ready for the tiler when he turned up the following week. Had I got one of the 'off the shelf' premium kits then it would have been about 3x more expensive.  

 

Ordering all our Grohe, HansGrohe, VB etc bathroom kit on Megabad saved us about 40% vs Uk prices at that time. Similar for our Velux Integra windows etc. Do that a few times on a build and you start to save £1000s. Total time expended, a few hours on the internet over a few evenings.

 

That's where you will make savings and get what you want.

[puntloos]

Editing for brevity, please let me know if I remove stuff unfairly

Quote

Quite often, you all of a sudden develop a strong opinion once someone researches 3x options and presents them  Normally you tend to opinion towards Option 4-6.

But that's part of it anyway, I need someone to do the legwork to know 'what to care about'.

To be fair I think it will fall to us to select the things, but actually getting it, at that price, at the right time is perhaps something others can do?

 

 

Quote

With regards to a main contractor, if you manage to find one who is

1) a solid pro with quality and excellence to show in a real-life (visitable!) portfolio of previous projects

2) who can be honest and transparent re their costs and mark-up (I'm yet to see one)

3) who have a high level of tolerance towards variations and won't ignore them

 

Then they're worth your 100% trust and you probably won't need a PM / QS.

 

Please provide the address of this mythical contractor

 

Quote

 

+1 to the above expressed opinion re keeping a PM on an hourly rate rather than a %. But they fight this.

The PMs on my shortlist both proposed this from the start.. 

 

5 hours ago, Dan F said:

 

I beleive that the right way to run a build depends on everyones own personal situation: budget, skills, interest, work/family situation and if they are in a caravan or paying rent every month etc.

 

 

I guess my main default is that I already trust the builder to deliver a 'decent job' and any time I might pour into it will improve the end result.... 

 

5 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

 

Just be aware that the concept of reasonable can vary between the purchaser and the vendor - QS will decompose your build into component tasks and materials and use Spons to incrementally build up a cost model. This will only ever be indicative  and materials and labour may well come in cheaper or more expensive  - highly dependent on local, national and International variables plus your own trade off between time and quality.

 

But it's an incremental process, no? Yes, the initial guess is based on detail drawings, but from there the actual purchases will be audited based on reality 

 

Quote

Look, a professional will get a job done in the time allocated and the budget allowed. They will not agonise into the night whether they gave you enough options on your door handles or spent enough time hunting down the best possible deal on a box of glue to save you £5. 

Yep, fair enough. But I don't care either

Or more specifically, the time invested researching the best deal for glue has to be relative to the actual cost.

 

Quote

 

I did very little actual work myself but organised all of the trades & sourced materials etc.  

 

Trades are not needed in my context, we have a builder in mind that would do it all (and regardless, I can imagine the contracts PM doing this). Clearly I'd be happy to pick fabrics (...) and ovens etc, if you give me a list of prices? I assume that's how it would go? I think the main builder has a few default suppliers e.g. "wickes" and if I want stuff outside their catalogue I'd have to find it and get it onsite on some date myself?

 

Quote

I would just find the time - that's what weekends, evenings & lunch breaks are for. BTW, it's not as time consuming as you make out. Trades are not children, if you get the right ones, they do not need constant supervision - they do need clear instruction of what you want though and the ability to get hold of you asap if a snap decision needs to be made.

No problem, I think  

 

Quote

 

Self build is a big sacrifice of your finances, personal and professional life - it will consume you for the duration but at the end you have something special (hopefully).

 

Thanks for all your insights, this is really useful stuff. I guess I need to find my own balance, the core question remains: how can I pay other to do stuff that I'm not uniquely qualified for. When it comes to the material choices I agree it'll have to mostly be myself and my wife, but as much of 'the rest' I can push away I will..

 

6 hours ago, Dan F said:

 

 

 

If you have a good main contractor you can trust and have agreed prices/formulas and a contract in place, I can't really see why you need all the meetings/valuations and other items you listed.  If you have a mortgage that needs a valuation, they'll send someone out to do this.

 

Hmm, indeed perhaps I need to cut out a few things - they were an enumerated list of things they "included in their fixed price" - I should probably remove a few and pay (a premium?) if and when they do happen..

Edited June 28, 2020 by puntloos

[Bitpipe]

On 28/06/2020 at 22:01, puntloos said:

But that's part of it anyway, I need someone to do the legwork to know 'what to care about'.

To be fair I think it will fall to us to select the things, but actually getting it, at that price, at the right time is perhaps something others can do?

 

A QS will be able to decompose the build into 'things', your builder and PM, if you get one, should help you understand which things are commodities (glue, sand etc) and which have a cost/quality/timing tradeoff or are a visible aesthetic and you want to choose them yourself.

 

However, the question always remains, how do you ever know that the price a PM or builder gives you for anything is really the 'best price' or even the best option?

 

Answer is you don't unless you do the research yourself. However that in itself can be a tradeoff - how long do you spend searching for a better deal? When is good enough, good enough.

 

Many of us have been surprised that for many items, the local builders merchant is way more expensive than other purchasing options, yet they are full of builders all day long. Why? Those builders care much less about the 'best price' (as their client will ultimately foot the bill) and what they are most worried about is payment terms to help them manage their cashflow.

 

You just need to get your expectations straight : for your contractors and professionals, this is a job - it will get done (hopefully well) and then the next job will come along and so on. They will not have to live in it.

 

If you care deeply, get involved as much as you can. If you don't (and that's not a criticism) just let them get on with it.