Tender reponse - what level of detailed breakdown?

[JohnW]

I plan to use a main contractor and will be going out to tender in the next month or so.

 

I suspect builders will be happy to come back with a single line price, however I will be asking them to break it down into more detail so I can compare apples with apples.

 

To get me started, can anyone suggest a list of items that the prices should be broken down to? 

[Fallingditch]

John: I've sent you via DM a sample spreadsheet for a house design which I sent out for tender responses in July 2015 here in Essex. It only makes sense if you have a set of detailed plans - but you should get an idea of the level of granularity.

 

I was very disappointed with the responses from Tenderers. I sent seven out - the cheapest quote was for £415k and the most expensive £735k !!

 

I put a lot of effort into the design, but in the end we threw it away and started again. Second time around I hired a PM who had their own crew and they are building it. The job's going generally OK.  Its running at about £1,500 psm (if you want a guideline). One year old and a month to go.

 

I feel I can now speak from experience. So here's a health warning. Even though we put a lot of effort getting good quality plans drawn up, and providing detailed specifications of materials and fittings, there have still been a huge number of changes we have negotiated with the PM. You might think you can get to a point where you working from a fixed price - but as soon as you start making the decisions that you didnt know you had to, the potential exists for you to get hit with additional charges over and above your contract.

 

Moral of the story?  its all about the relationship you have with the builder, and how much effort you can put into specifiying things beforehand. Suggestion? get the builder to give you three reference sites of clients they have constructed custom builds for.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2017 by Fallingditch
typo correction

[JohnW]

Thanks @Fallingditch, spreadsheet is great and some very useful advice above.

 

Can't believe the disparity between the highest & lowest prices...nearly £300k!! Gulp...I think I'd better prepare myself for some shocks.

 

 

 

 

[vfrdave]

The other surprise you will get @JohnWwill be the number of builders that show interest, take it away to price, and never bother getting back with one or any reason why not.

[Jeremy Harris]

Plus the challenge of trying to compare tenders when all of them quote on a different basis and to differing standards, with varying lists of what's included and excluded.  I found comparing quotes a bit of a nightmare, made worse because I had to go around chasing up many for details of their quote.  A couple even refused to give me details about things like the airtightness level or the mitigation measures for thermal bridging at the foundation/wall junction.  Looking back, it was probably second only to dealing with the utility companies in terms of frustration.

[JohnW]

Thanks @vfrdave and @JSHarris you are echoing exactly what others have told me and therefore my expectations are low in terms of the detail I'm expecting to receive back from builders. That low expectation is the reason for this thread. What I'm hoping to produce is a well defined tender request document that clearly states how the price needs to be broken down and what level of detail is required - it's the only way I can have any hope of comparing apples with apples.

 

[Steptoe]

The biggest problem you will find with tenders if YOU don't specify exactly what you want is this,

No one wants to give you a design of how they would do it and then you go to someone else and say,

This is the design I want, how much,?

 

[swisscheese]

I can only echo much of the above, this was a very frustrating process and as you say.

 

I was naive in thinking the level of detail in the package would mean a simpler task in finding a contractor, the reality was far from that.  Comparing quotes was difficult despite the level of detail we put into the tender package.

 

Many Contractors/Builders do not come back with a price, in areas where work is plentiful some consider anything that requires more thought too much of a PITA to bother pricing as a main contractor.

[Jeremy Harris]

I spent a long time drawing up specification requirements in much more detail than the vast majority of the UK companies I asked to quote wanted.  Most just ignored the performance standards we asked for, even after having them highlighted more than once.  I remember meeting with one local builder, who advertised that they offered a low energy build package, and finding out, after a lot of hard work, that what they were really offering was a build standard that barely met building regs, in terms of energy efficiency. 

 

Our decision to use an Irish company, despite the potential issues with contracting with a builder in another country, was primarily because they were pretty much the only builder that gave us a pretty good specification, with a performance guarantee.  The latter is something that not one of the other companies we asked to quote would give.  Having a builder working to a firm price, with a guarantee of no thermal bridges in the structure and Passivhaus standards of airtightness and insulation, together with the same builder supplying and constructing the foundation system, took a great deal of risk out of the build, as far as I was concerned.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2017 by JSHarris
bad grammar..............

[joe90]

Some people used to laugh at the level of details in my quotes for building work but it paid off as there was no ambiguity on what was covered and who paid for what. A mate of mine was useless, his quotes were very thin on detail and he always ended up falling out with customers over the bill..  P.S. I hate ambiguity.

[Mackers]

Its my experience the industry over that they never quote on what's asked for but just what they usually do. I work on projects £100m+ and its the same. This leads to all sorts of arguements and disputes. If QS's etc made them cost the jobs properly it would all go smoother.

[Jeremy Harris]

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

Some people used to laugh at the level of details in my quotes for building work but it paid off as there was no ambiguity on what was covered and who paid for what. A mate of mine was useless, his quotes were very thin on detail and he always ended up falling out with customers over the bill..  P.S. I hate ambiguity.

 

For what it's worth, we chose both our ground works contractor, and our main contractor, because they both provided a complete breakdown of what was and was not included, together with a detailed specification.  The ground works company encouraged me to talk directly to their QS, to iron out a couple of minor issues with their quote.  Both companies gave me enough detail to feel confident that we were going to get what we wanted, with no misunderstandings, and that's exactly what happened - we were very happy with the outcome from both.

 

It has to be said that both these companies stood out from all the others, in that they actually took note of our requirements and specification and contracted to deliver to them. 

[Dave]

Looking at potential self build and having read a few posts regarding costs per sqm , if the area/foot print is 100 sqm @ average £1200 p/sqm, Total £120,000 , is this ball part figure just for the ground floor or would you need to add this again for the 1st floor

 

Dave

[Jeremy Harris]

Welcome Dave,

 

The cost per m² is usually the net internal floor area, so the internal footprint  of each floor added together.  Our new build is about 130m², but has a ground floor internal footprint of 75m², and a first floor internal footprint of about 55m², because the first floor is room-in-roof.

 

£1200/m² is certainly possible, but I get the feeling that a lot of self-builders end up paying a bit more than this.  A fair bit depends on where you live, as a lot of the cost is in labour, and that varies a fair bit from region to region.

[Dave]

My budget is about £250,000 to do the build, so now the hard work begins on estimating and quotes etc, most helpful, Thank you