What cost per m2 can we REALISTICALLY achieve?

[Mulberry View]

We (theoretically) own a 0.5 acre plot in East Anglia. Needs some clearance (some already done), no services at present. It'll need to have a long driveway, though 3/4 of it can be done in a bulk low-cost solution (gravel or whatever) before reaching the 'gate'. Slightly tricky access, might need to consider piping concrete or smaller trucks.

The house is likely to be a 3-4 bedroom Chalet bungalow with double garage, modern style, open plan with a fair bit of glass and a nice bespoke staircase. Likely to be around 200-225sq/m, give or take. Finished to a good standard, to keep not sell. We'll have UFH, ASHP/GSHP, fabric first approach, we want the place to be warm and cheap to run. PV if beneficial. We won't bother installing gas and are undecided whether we have a mains drain or a treatment plant.

 

I am not a tradesman, but would describe myself as an advanced DIY'er. I can do most electrics (have a good mate who can/will help and/or sign off), most plumbing, kitchen and bathroom fitting (have done already to a good standard), plaster-boarding and I can graft too. I cannot lay bricks or plaster, I cannot drive a mini-digger (yet), nor do I own one. I do know my limits, but am able to self-teach what I don't know as that's what I've done so far. In fact I wired up the whole 4-room extension on our last house, including consumer unit with my sparky mate only coming to test and sign-off (which he was more than happy to put his word to) and removed/relocated the PV system onto the new roof. The OH is a grafter, who can also do a good amount and we're jointly good at procurement, we shop hard and smart. If anything, a little too hard (bordering on procrastination, a quality I need to work on).

 

We'll be living onsite in a caravan and have plenty of room. I could be potentially close to full-time on it if it pays to do so.

 

What budget do you think we need to expect?

[PeterW]

£1250 ... and buy smart !! Chalet bungalow can be done cheaply, go for standard construction methods and don’t spend £30k on windows ... 

[Mulberry View]

46 minutes ago, PeterW said:

£1250 ... and buy smart !! Chalet bungalow can be done cheaply, go for standard construction methods and don’t spend £30k on windows ... 

 

That's encouraging. I had in my mind a target figure of £1500, I think if we can get a design we like at around 200-220sq/m and get somewhere close to £1500 all in, I'd be happy. Hopefully that figure can allow for us to be a little more fancy in some areas.

 

I was worried in case £1500 is tight and we end up slipping closer to £2000 and that would be a problem.

 

I think we'll have about £280k to start with, along with anything else we can put in organically over the build (perhaps pushing the budget to just over £300k?). Ideally we don't want to borrow, but could tolerate a small mortgage if we had to in order to finish the drive, landscaping etc if we'd blown the budget on the main build.

 

 

[nod]

We came in at £780 5 bed 3 bath 

Traditional built to a high standard 

I expect to keep under a £1000 m2 for our next one 

 

[recoveringbuilder]

4 minutes ago, nod said:

We came in at £780 5 bed 3 bath 

Traditional built to a high standard 

I expect to keep under a £1000 m2 for our next one 

 

I’ve seen you mention this before @nod

where do you think you made your biggest savings? I know you and your wife did a lot of the work do you think this was the biggest contributing factor?

We’d like to have one more go at it but would need to keep the budget really tight as we’ve both hit 60 now and want to keep some cash for retirement.

[nod]

14 minutes ago, recoveringbuilder said:

I’ve seen you mention this before @nod

where do you think you made your biggest savings? I know you and your wife did a lot of the work do you think this was the biggest contributing factor?

We’d like to have one more go at it but would need to keep the budget really tight as we’ve both hit 60 now and want to keep some cash for retirement.

Labour Labour Labour 

 

 

Without any doubt 

We also bought materials at good prices Where we could 

Kept the professional fees down to a minimum 

We where very lucky with Conections All in the same place

750 810 1150 

Though other costs where going to be high 

750 tons of much to move and pay for leveling the site prior to starting 

Tree roots meant deep foundation 

100 cube of concrete plus B&B

Planners insisting on more than thirty sash windows 

My wife choosing the most expensive Italian floor tiles (160 m2) 

and 17 on a German Kitchen 

Saved four k fitting it myself 

My wife and myself slated the roofs We returned just over a thousand warped slates 

If we had brought someone in They would have chucked these off the scaffold No chance of taking them back for a refund 

 

No one will look after your money better than yourself 

 

 

[recoveringbuilder]

Yup agree with you there, we spent every night lifting things that had been discarded, had enough 8x2 wood left to do the base for a 30m2 deck. 
looking back I wouldn’t spend £26k on a kitchen or over £20k for the heating system!

[nod]

1 hour ago, recoveringbuilder said:

Yup agree with you there, we spent every night lifting things that had been discarded, had enough 8x2 wood left to do the base for a 30m2 deck. 
looking back I wouldn’t spend £26k on a kitchen or over £20k for the heating system!

We knew we would be selling So while we did it nice we took the advice of an estate agent friend and push the boat out on the finish

All German and Italian 

If it had just been for us We wouldn’t have spent on bifold Neff dishwasher 800 quid Italian extractor All of which we hardly use Oh and two bathrooms that we have never used 

[Faz]

I am doing a build of 3 in north Cambs of around 6,500 sq. ft. and the costs are going to come in at less than £100psf.

[PeterW]

37 minutes ago, Faz said:

I am doing a build of 3 in north Cambs of around 6,500 sq. ft. and the costs are going to come in at less than £100psf.

So around the £1100/sqm mark but you should have economies of scale with 3 on one site ..? Is that including all services and landscaping ..?

[Mulberry View]

2 hours ago, nod said:

We came in at £780 5 bed 3 bath 

Traditional built to a high standard 

I expect to keep under a £1000 m2 for our next one 

 

 

Yes, we know about you! Your build is the one I always refer to in conversations about the lowest £/m2. ?

 

I have to be realistic about my ability, but I'm always keen to do whatever jobs I can. Though I want to keep the cadence up so have to be sure to find the balance.

 

In our renovation project, we struggled to find trades we trusted, hence learning it ourselves. It might take me 3 or 4 times as long, but I'm usually pretty happy with my finish. Whereas I've had tradesmen make c'ockups, then lie and cover them up (badly).

[nod]

33 minutes ago, Mulberry View said:

 

Yes, we know about you! Your build is the one I always refer to in conversations about the lowest £/m2. ?

 

I have to be realistic about my ability, but I'm always keen to do whatever jobs I can. Though I want to keep the cadence up so have to be sure to find the balance.

 

In our renovation project, we struggled to find trades we trusted, hence learning it ourselves. It might take me 3 or 4 times as long, but I'm usually pretty happy with my finish. Whereas I've had tradesmen make c'ockups, then lie and cover them up (badly).

Most of the trades floating around doing private work are expensive and less than perfect 

Although I’ve been in building all my adult life There are lots of things we tackled that where not my bag But with a bit of care and time most things are doable 

  Good luck 

[LSB]

6 hours ago, Mulberry View said:

We (theoretically) own a 0.5 acre plot in East Anglia. Needs some clearance (some already done), no services at present. It'll need to have a long driveway, though 3/4 of it can be done in a bulk low-cost solution (gravel or whatever) before reaching the 'gate'. Slightly tricky access, might need to consider piping concrete or smaller trucks.

The house is likely to be a 3-4 bedroom Chalet bungalow with double garage, modern style, open plan with a fair bit of glass and a nice bespoke staircase. Likely to be around 200-225sq/m, give or take. Finished to a good standard, to keep not sell. We'll have UFH, ASHP/GSHP, fabric first approach, we want the place to be warm and cheap to run. PV if beneficial. We won't bother installing gas and are undecided whether we have a mains drain or a treatment plant.

 

I am not a tradesman, but would describe myself as an advanced DIY'er. I can do most electrics (have a good mate who can/will help and/or sign off), most plumbing, kitchen and bathroom fitting (have done already to a good standard), plaster-boarding and I can graft too. I cannot lay bricks or plaster, I cannot drive a mini-digger (yet), nor do I own one. I do know my limits, but am able to self-teach what I don't know as that's what I've done so far. In fact I wired up the whole 4-room extension on our last house, including consumer unit with my sparky mate only coming to test and sign-off (which he was more than happy to put his word to) and removed/relocated the PV system onto the new roof. The OH is a grafter, who can also do a good amount and we're jointly good at procurement, we shop hard and smart. If anything, a little too hard (bordering on procrastination, a quality I need to work on).

 

We'll be living onsite in a caravan and have plenty of room. I could be potentially close to full-time on it if it pays to do so.

 

What budget do you think we need to expect?

Hi, I'm also in EA doing about the same size, where are you, we are in East Suffolk.

 

[Faz]

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

So around the £1100/sqm mark but you should have economies of scale with 3 on one site ..? Is that including all services and landscaping ..?

That is everything.  We have our own telehandler and welfare unit tbh which saves a fair bit of money on hire charges. One thing I would recommend is that you look to buy rather than hire if you can - as an example. on our last job, we needed a pallet truck - the hire cost was £250 per month - I bought a new one for £250 and it is still with us today.  Same with the telehandler - the hire cost for our machine is £1,560 + VAT pcm - I bought ours for £26,000 + VAT.  Even if we knocked it all on the head in a few years we would probably be able to sell this kit for pretty much what we paid for it.

 

As you say, 3 are just about enough to start getting economies of scale - you should have seen the prices we were paying for materials when we did 88 flats! High end wall tiles that retailed for £14 a tile we were buying for £1.82 as an example.  We are still able to leverage previous scale on this job a bit but flats demand rather different supplies than houses in the main (acoustics and fire ratings / separation etc).

 

My advice is to spend your pre-mobilisation time in getting prices - you can never have too many. Once you get on site you just want to be calling stuff off that you have priced and not be getting into the position of seeking quotes as you just don't have the time to properly assess it.

 

Final piece of advice is to be a bit vague with the site name / details when you get brick quotes - the merchants try to register the site with the brick manufacturer and all of your subsequent quotes will be worse.  That saved me a world of pain as the first 3 quotes I received were for more than £1 a brick - finally got a decent quote at 44p with MKM which we snapped up.

[Gone West]

19 hours ago, Mulberry View said:

What budget do you think we need to expect?

What do you want to include in the costs? Do you have all the tools you are likely to need. Could easily spend several thousand if you need a lot to do it yourself. Are you going to use an architect for planning or building control. Are you going to include the cost of say a 100m2 terrace paved with Welsh slate. There are so many variables I don't think it is a good way of budgeting. On Buildhub you are comparing people who do it for a living with people who have never done it before with people on their fifth self build. Unfortunately you are not comparing apples with apples using cost/m2.

[AliG]

I think it is partly important to design a house that will be cheaper to build.

 

As mentioned on the windows, we are about to star a 195 sq metre place for my parents. There are 75 sq metres of windows, so straight off we are going to be almost £200 a square metre for 3g alu clad windows. If I had thought about it, I might have asked the architect to do less glass.

[Mulberry View]

51 minutes ago, PeterStarck said:

What do you want to include in the costs? Do you have all the tools you are likely to need. Could easily spend several thousand if you need a lot to do it yourself. Are you going to use an architect for planning or building control. Are you going to include the cost of say a 100m2 terrace paved with Welsh slate. There are so many variables I don't think it is a good way of budgeting. On Buildhub you are comparing people who do it for a living with people who have never done it before with people on their fifth self build. Unfortunately you are not comparing apples with apples using cost/m2.

 

I completely understand what you're saying. It's just trying to gauge what others that have done it think we might achieve with the description I gave above. I'm trying to estimate within a wide parameter, perhaps really the question I'm looking to answer is if it's a risk that we might exceed £2000/m2, or if there's a chance to build for around £1500/m2, which it looks like we probably can.

 

I know a lot of this will rely on us being smart, we are bound to win some and lose some, but it's the average I'm worried about.

[PeterW]

Also depends on your location in the UK and proximity to decent trades. You’re in East Anglia, so you won’t be too affected by the development bubbles in areas like the North West and South East driving up labour prices, but may be restricted on the trades you can get - taking a “traditional” route of brick and block and widening the cavity to 175mm for better insulation levels; aiming for MVHR and semi passiv but doing the airtight detail yourself; using an attic truss but getting deeper rafters for lots of insulation; all things that wouldn’t be an issue for a set of traditional builders but would mean you get the upgraded fabric but without big additional costs. 

[Bitpipe]

58 minutes ago, AliG said:

I think it is partly important to design a house that will be cheaper to build.

 

As mentioned on the windows, we are about to star a 195 sq metre place for my parents. There are 75 sq metres of windows, so straight off we are going to be almost £200 a square metre for 3g alu clad windows. If I had thought about it, I might have asked the architect to do less glass.

 

The house builders bible does a good chapter on this. When you build, you're paying for walls to enclose a space, more wall more cost.

 

A 10m square encloses 100m2 of area for 40m of wall. A 20x5 rectangle encloses the same area for 50m of wall. The wall/space ratio gets worse when you have L shaped buildings etc.

 

Following the same logic, two stories is more efficient than one. Gable end walls allow rooms in roof etc.

 

Expanses of glass look nice on plan but are expensive, drive up the cost of the rest of the fabric (has to compensate for the less efficient insulation) and can lead to overheating in summer. Good design can give you equivalent light and views but for less glass - e.g. we have some very neat vertical & horizontal slot windows.

[Mulberry View]

5 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

e.g. we have some very neat vertical & horizontal slot windows.

 

Show us then!!! ? I love seeing what others have done.

[SimonD]

12 hours ago, Faz said:

My advice is to spend your pre-mobilisation time in getting prices - you can never have too many. Once you get on site you just want to be calling stuff off that you have priced and not be getting into the position of seeking quotes as you just don't have the time to properly assess it.

 

Final piece of advice is to be a bit vague with the site name / details when you get brick quotes - the merchants try to register the site with the brick manufacturer and all of your subsequent quotes will be worse.  That saved me a world of pain as the first 3 quotes I received were for more than £1 a brick - finally got a decent quote at 44p with MKM which we snapped up.

You clearly have the advantage of serial scaled projects. I approached our build in the same way that I would have approached projects I used to manage in a large firm, which mirros exactly what you suggest. However, I've found that if you're building a one-off, which suppliers easily sniff out in discussions, they may not give two hoots what they've previously quoted (unless you buy within the quote window). My architect warned about this - as an architect he got better responses from some companies than I did because they're after the repeat business.

 

For example, I've had several suppliers hike their prices when I came to ordering. I often wonder whether they do this because they know you're committed at that point. Here are some examples:

Insulation: price for ground floor wall insulation originally quoted at just over £42/square meter for the full system at order the proforma invoice came to £71/square meter (maybe they were hoping I wouldn't notice). The company refused to negotiate.

Roof cover : Original price at just 4300, wanted over 12000 at order then reduced is to just over 8k

Windows: went from 22k to 29k even with significant reduction in glazed area as we had to reduce this due 'overglazing.'

 

I've also experienced the wonderful tactic of the builders merchants to give you a good welcome discount only to follow up with awful prices worse than the local diy centres. And be warned if you want something not on your initial materials list you'll have to haggle for each item.

 

That's not to say I haven't managed some major discounts by finding the right supplier and doing the negotiation. Even tricks like not buying throught a supplier's website but instead picking up the phone to speak to someone - many times I've received discounts of up to 30-50% on the web price.

 

Now that I've got some building experience under my belt, when reps ask me I always tell them I'm a developer rather than self-builder. I've even registered a new domain name so I have an email that looks like a company. As I'm self employed, it's also allowed me to order direct from suppliers who don't deal direct with the public. This can save some pretty pennies too.

 

All in all, I've found it to be like one big hustle and not surpised so many trades simply use Wickes and B&Q.

[Mulberry View]

6 minutes ago, SimonD said:

You clearly have the advantage of serial scaled projects. I approached our build in the same way that I would have approached projects I used to manage in a large firm, which mirros exactly what you suggest. However, I've found that if you're building a one-off, which suppliers easily sniff out in discussions, they may not give two hoots what they've previously quoted (unless you buy within the quote window). My architect warned about this - as an architect he got better responses from some companies than I did because they're after the repeat business.

 

For example, I've had several suppliers hike their prices when I came to ordering. I often wonder whether they do this because they know you're committed at that point. Here are some examples:

Insulation: price for ground floor wall insulation originally quoted at just over £42/square meter for the full system at order the proforma invoice came to £71/square meter (maybe they were hoping I wouldn't notice). The company refused to negotiate.

Roof cover : Original price at just 4300, wanted over 12000 at order then reduced is to just over 8k

Windows: went from 22k to 29k even with significant reduction in glazed area as we had to reduce this due 'overglazing.'

 

I've also experienced the wonderful tactic of the builders merchants to give you a good welcome discount only to follow up with awful prices worse than the local diy centres. And be warned if you want something not on your initial materials list you'll have to haggle for each item.

 

That's not to say I haven't managed some major discounts by finding the right supplier and doing the negotiation. Even tricks like not buying throught a supplier's website but instead picking up the phone to speak to someone - many times I've received discounts of up to 30-50% on the web price.

 

Now that I've got some building experience under my belt, when reps ask me I always tell them I'm a developer rather than self-builder. I've even registered a new domain name so I have an email that looks like a company. As I'm self employed, it's also allowed me to order direct from suppliers who don't deal direct with the public. This can save some pretty pennies too.

 

All in all, I've found it to be like one big hustle and not surpised so many trades simply use Wickes and B&Q.

 

Now there's some great advice, that I'll definitely be exploring.

[SimonD]

8 minutes ago, Mulberry View said:

 

Now there's some great advice, that I'll definitely be exploring.

Here are some other hopefully useful tips that can save you money without reducing the quality of your build.

 

1. put together a complete material list for the whole house and then add a resonable contingency - you can then send out this list to all your potential material suppliers, but sometimes you may need to separate out types of materials for specialist supplier - e.g. timber only merchant versus masonry.

2. When calculating materials, don't just go by lengths and area. Why? Because if you walk into a builders merchant and say you need 647 meters of 47x175 c24 carcassing, they'll likely chuck a load of timbers the same length, like 4.8 or 6 meters. This can end up really inefficient for your build and more expensive as sometimes longer length timber can be more expensive than the shorter ones per meter. Instead I suggest you sit down with a spreadsheet and calculate the lengths you need for each part of your build, including noggins etc. So for example, if you're building an intermediate floor at 400 centres with a span of 3.2 meters, a 3.6 meter length will give you the span and the noggin (you can see the potential wastage here if you're working with 4.8 or 6 meter lengths. You'll end up with something like a list of 32 @ 3.6m, 24 @ 4.8m, 28 @ 6m. Same thing with the flooring - lay it all out across the building rather than simply taking the square meter figure, you'll get a more accurate number of boards.

3. You draw down on the material list as your build progesses at that agree price. Sometimes the price may change simply due to timescale but you have a better starting point for that negotiation.

 

It's time consuming but will save you money and will reduce waste. I filled less than half an 8 yard skip for the entire superstructure of the build and I've used thousands of meters of timber. And where we are skips cost a lot of money too!

 

I completely agree with other comments about buying plant and machinery where you can. I bought a digger and small dumper and within a few months calculated than if I'd hired the same stuff it would have cost 3k more.

 

I also sympathise with your frustration about estimating build costs. Neither my wife nor I could fathom this inability of anyone in the construction industry we spoke to to be able to predict the outcome build costs. Now I understand a bit more, it's in part due to the dysfunctional and inefficient way the UK construction industry works, including I think a signficant portion of the professionals associated with the industry. I've found that those per square meter figures are pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things and it seems costing is more down to licking the index finger and sticking it up there in the wind - but as has already been meantioned it's also down the building design, site location, specification etc. etc.. One things that caused us trouble was that finding local builders with the experience of working with the materials we chose were non-existent so suitable builders would have to travel some way which has a big impact of cost.

 

With our build we'd assumed we could squeeze it in at about £1200/m2 but local prices meant we'd more likely be looking at around the 2k/m2 if not more ( we had one quote that was 2k/m2 to shell only!). If I get it in at the price I think I can manage, I will have build it myself for about 900 and that will likely include many sacrifices along the way in terms of spec.

[Bitpipe]

1 hour ago, Mulberry View said:

 

Show us then!!! ? I love seeing what others have done.

 

Some pictures of my house on this thread - page 2.