Hello! Two-bed new build and builder slow to quote

[Christian181]

Hi all

 

I'm new to the forum. We got planning last year for a two-bed new home attached to our 1930s semi on a corner plot. The plan is to build it, sell our current home, move into the new one for a spell (less than three years) and then sell it and move on with a bigger pot. We want to build something mid-spec, with some quality touches.
 

I started speaking to the builder that did our kitchen extension fast and pretty well two years ago. We get on well but he just doesn't seem set up to do a full quote that would satisfy the specialist lenders or me. Is that common?

 

Is it reasonable to expect a pretty detailed broken down quotes from prospective builders as a first step (I sort of know it is, but this blockage is stressing me out)? We have provided all the building regs drawings but the builder doesn't seem to have a QS/estimator to call on. He has put me in touch with the drawings guy and a building control guy he rates, but we've only actually met up twice. I haven't  led him on at all, just told him what I need and he has kicked things down the road for weeks now.

 

Unless he can quote fully, I don't have anything to work with, do I?

 

[recoveringbuilder]

It’s possible that he is not set up to do a full house build, we know a lot of good tradesmen who we would get to do smaller jobs but who would readily admit they wouldn’t take on a big project. The builder we used did all the take offs himself from our plans without a qs and he was very accurate, company we’d first contacted did use a qs and the price rocketed. Our son in law is a qs but although we asked him to do the last house we built we didn’t ask him this time.

[nod]

Quotes will be quite slow at the moment Everyone is very busy trying to catch up with work that was in before the lockdown 

May be worth trying a couple of other companies 

[Christian181]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, we have had a few more people out and been v transparent with the first builder about our plans and what we need from him. I think he is now using Build Aviator from Jewsons to generate a quote. I had a project manager guy out as well as conventional main contractors who said Build Aviator is his preferred method of quoting, and then he runs jobs using the BuilderTrend app and he runs it all open book with his margin there to see. It sounds quite attractive if the numbers stack up. 

Have others got experience with a project being run like this?

 

Edited July 2, 2020 by Christian181

[joth]

1 hour ago, Christian181 said:

Have others got experience with a project being run like this?

 

A colleague did a major renovation (the inspiration for own own project, in fact) this way: everything was open-book and indeed managed through BuilderTrend. Both aspects of this suited them very well, as they wanted a lot of control over design elements that could only be decided as it progressed, and having the app give full visibility of the process start to end, including what they wanted done each stage and how much it would cost before it happens.

One snag was he (as client) had to take control of the "architect" / contract administrator role in the app to keep things moving at a reasonable pace. Fortunately his brother was the architect/contract admin so the trust was there to make this work. (No idea if the builder ever new this is what was going on). I know from our own project the 3-way builder-architect-client decisions can be painful. (But I find much worse the situation we've had once or twice where architect approves a change without looping us in, and then a month later we get a surprise bill for thousands on work changes we would have preferred having  input into, or at least advanced warning of. BuilderTrend REALLY should solve that problem at source. I wanted to use it before we set out, and would definitely seek to make that a requirement of any future job like this).

 

 

That said, no idea if it's because of my colleague's tastes, the fact they just weren't super cost-sensitive, or because of the area (London) or what, but their project did end up well over double the initial agreed budget. So while going open book gives visibility on price, it is not necessarily better for controlling it.

 

 

[the_r_sole]

On 01/07/2020 at 10:23, Christian181 said:

Is it reasonable to expect a pretty detailed broken down quotes from prospective builders as a first step (I sort of know it is, but this blockage is stressing me out)? We have provided all the building regs drawings but the builder doesn't seem to have a QS/estimator to call on. He has put me in touch with the drawings guy and a building control guy he rates, but we've only actually met up twice. I haven't  led him on at all, just told him what I need and he has kicked things down the road for weeks now.

 

It really depends on the quality of information you have given him - I don't think you can expect him to come back with a fully priced bill of quantities unless you have employed a QS to prepare the bill.

Usually if we are tendering a house, we would issue a set of tender drawings, which are much more detailed than building regs drawings and a schedule of works which will normally run to somewhere around 30 pages for a house - the better the information you give out, the better information you will have returned, with building reg drawings there is always a danger that the builder assumes one thing and you assume another, and you don't find out until they'll brought the brass sockets on site and started fitting them!

[Ralph]

1 hour ago, the_r_sole said:

On 01/07/2020 at 10:23, Christian181 said:

Is it reasonable to expect a pretty detailed broken down quotes from prospective builders as a first step (I sort of know it is, but this blockage is stressing me out)? We have provided all the building regs drawings but the builder doesn't seem to have a QS/estimator to call on. He has put me in touch with the drawings guy and a building control guy he rates, but we've only actually met up twice. I haven't  led him on at all, just told him what I need and he has kicked things down the road for weeks now.

 

It really depends on the quality of information you have given him - I don't think you can expect him to come back with a fully priced bill of quantities unless you have employed a QS to prepare the bill.

Usually if we are tendering a house, we would issue a set of tender drawings, which are much more detailed than building regs drawings and a schedule of works which will normally run to somewhere around 30 pages for a house - the better the information you give out, the better information you will have returned, with building reg drawings there is always a danger that the builder assumes one thing and you assume another, and you don't find out until they'll brought the brass sockets on site and started fitting them!

 

Some people seem to have had successful builds with the minimum of paperwork and a handshake with a builder they liked. I went the other way and put in what I think was a lot of effort and some cash to make sure I'd covered as much as possible. I'll know at the end of the year if it was worth it but at the moment it feels like it was. 

 

We (well the architect) put together a tender document for builders that was 8 pages long with about 23 other documents as appendices, everything from location plans and ground/drainage reports to engineer's structural performance drawing along with detailed notes and all the usual drawings.

Builders were asked to respond with indicative costs, we then shortlisted and asked a couple to provide an actual quote. The builder we went with then provided a fairly detailed tender document and a progamme of works gantt chart.

 

That was then all worked into a minor works building contract that ran to 100 plus pages.

 

Some builders were not prepared to go further than a single side of paper with costs broken into 6 stages with a bit to sign at the bottom. 

 

 

 

[Christian181]

I am learning as I go!

I do like the idea of pinning down the detail and now better understand the gaps in what we've provided. I'm minded to plug some of those gaps as I feel I don't really have a builder I can trust entirely just to get on with it in good faith. 

 

Strangely, the guy that did the building regs drawings and structural calcs has taken offence at me now indicating I want to get some more detail together, like M&E drawings. Whether or not he can/cannot do them, he reckons the way I have asked about extra drawings and detail and checked in with building control represents 'a breach of trust'. I am baffled. I don't know what to say to him other than that I am happy with the drawings I have and am now looking to develop some more to get my precise costings and help the builders with the detail. I don't know why his nose it out of joint.

 

The project manager guy I mentioned earlier in the thread who would run it through BuilderTrend is going to quote using Build Aviator and has asked me to pay for it, which I am happy to.  

I had one quote back so far, which was more than expected, and with many elements not pinned down. I hope some others are closer to my expectations. (£145k was the indication from the calculator for what is a 84 sq m two-bed property built in conventional brick/block, with a beam and block ground floor. First quote was for £166k but leaving out windows, services and some other elements.)

 

Is £7.5k for a basic staircase from ground to first floor clearly over the odds? Nothing special, just softwood standard construction. That was one quoted cost that jarred with me at first glance.

 

Thanks for insights so far. Very useful and much appreciated. 

 

 

[recoveringbuilder]

For £7.5k you’d be looking at a bespoke oak staircase with glass or other fancy balustrade! 
You can buy a staircase from howdens ( softwood and mdf) for £120 or thereabouts,