Critique my quotes.. - here we go

[Simplysimon]

2 hours ago, puntloos said:

Do you think 30K is unreasonable for a 300sqm house install+supply of basics (mostly power sockets and cabling

getting mine done for 9k. sockets, lights, cat 6, ext lights, alarm and cameras, so absolutely!

[Moonshine]

A couple of things stand out to me on the floor build up

 

Quote

	Floor Finishes - Ground Floor		Contractor 1	Contractor 2
123	1200g DPM to Beam & Block flooring	140 m2	£1,209.60	£429.89
124	225mm thick Kingspan PIR insulation to Beam & Block flooring	140 m2	£9,060.45	£9,564.56
125	1000g VCL to Beam & Block flooring.	140 m2	£1,209.60	£419.40

 

123) The materials for this (DPM + joining tape) is probably ~£150, and not a massive job to lay a plastic sheet down and join it, so contractor 1 is pushing it on labour costs i think, contractor 2 is much more sensible but would expect 2 guys to do this in a mornings work.

 

124) Materials, my builder has given me his price list he gets from a local BM, PIR 150mm £74 a sheet, 75mm £35 a sheet. that works out as at ~£38m2 for 225mm, allow 150m2 for wastage, that's £5.7k for the insulation alone. call it £6k when you add on foil tape and expanding foam, maybe a bit more for a 25mm PIR perimeter strip. Given the amount you are buying you could get a good deal from a BM.

 

The remainder works out at about £3k in labour. Assume expensive builders of £250 a day, that's 12 man days! Personally i would like to think that could be done in 4-5 man days, so this looks heavy to the tune of about £1.5k.

 

125) as with 123 materials are similar so  similar comments to 125

 

126) why sand and cement screed? maybe potential saving in liquid screed, try this call a local liquid screeder as you maybe surprised at the cost. i have been quoted for 80m2 of 55mm screed of £1400 + Vat (£17.5 m2). could be a saving for you here, especially contractor 2!

[puntloos]

Just as a small side-note I definitely struggle untangling the risk from this all.

 

Yes, 1 brick is 1 GBP and the builder is charging 1.50, so poohpooh but the harder question is what is a reasonable amount to pay for the "guarantee" that once I've paid the money I will have a solid house.

 

Many people on this forum of course can point out prices asked are higher than what you can find with 10 minutes of Googling but the included risk, both standard as well as potential inflation-caused craziness and brexit delays etc..

[Moonshine]

 

Skips 25 - 30 quoted for? Jesus, How much stuff are they throwing away

 

Quote

100mm thick 3.6 N/mm2 Fenlite blocks in external cavity walls above dpc, including forming cavities. 250 m2 £35,100.00

 

If my maths is right, that is £70/m2 for 100mm block (£7 a block)!!! 😐That is F'ing expensive.

 

Quote

048 Knauf Dri-Therm Cavity Slab 32 insulation, 200mm thick to external cavity walls ~£9.5k

 

They don't do 200mm thick, so you will have to use two 100mm layers, a quick google

 

https://www.insulationhub.co.uk/product/knauf-dritherm-32-cavity-insulation-100mm/

 

Each pack covers 3.28m2, so doubling up for 250m2, gives around 150 packs. Say 160 packs needed for wastage.

 

That £5.3k in materials. Remainder £4.2k to fit the stuff.

 

Its not nice stuff to fit (i did 150mm if it on my build) due to skin irritation, but its not a fiddly as PIR around openings.

 

Anyway call it 500m2 to fit due to the double layer, that is £8 / m2. Again on the expensive side

[puntloos]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Why? Sounds like over kill.  Main living space and main bedroom have a multifunctional sensor. £150 to £200 each.  They can be stand alone items, we have mains wired CO2, temperature in lounge and bedroom. 

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

What benefit is there wiring it all into a central brain, bit lost with that one.

 

Interesting point. I guess it all depends and could be a big cost saving.

Of course the theory is that I have UFH, MVHR and A2A(aircon) not to mention blinds and awnings in every room, so if the sensor picks up humidity or temp or lots of light the entire house could respond in some clever fashion by opening the awnings but only if no rain and if the temperature etc.etcetc.

 

But is it worth the money.. 

 

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

 

MVHR, leave it as stand alone item, manual boost switch at each wet room, possibly auto humidity boost.  Job done.  Look at filters every sex months replace if required.  A big house tends to be very over ventilated rather than under.  

Fair enough, although I also have a network/server cabinet and a projector box that generates a lot of heat, MVHR might be able to help - anyway overdimensioing it a little will perhaps be a cost I can reduce if I need to but not 'urgent', thanks for the info!

[puntloos]

2 hours ago, Buzz said:

<snip>

You sound like you have an awesome house, congratulations!

 

2 hours ago, Buzz said:

 

I have taken a look at the quotes that you have posted and would love to be able to advise on where you could keep the same quality at a reduced price by changing brands or supplier but the prices on the quotes i am struggling to relate to . 

2 hours ago, Buzz said:

Looking at C1's preliminary's Item A 004 site laborer is quoted at 45 weeks @ £216 P/W for a total of £9720 i suspect that is the day rate and should read 45 weeks @1080 P/W for a total of £48600. 

Yeah, I wonder if that is a mistake. 

 

2 hours ago, Buzz said:

It seem that the price of your build is linked to the value of the finished product (I will make these numbers up) valuation of finished home 1.5M - plot value 400K = 1.1M build cost. 

It's certainly possible. I can very well imagine builders just looking to 'hit a number' rather than derive the number from the actual facts. And indeed, as I said elsewhere, to the best of my estimation (always hard to compare houses, huge differences in distance-to-station, garden size, etc) the resulting house would be maybe 15% cheaper than buying a similar quality one off-the-shelf.

 

Obviously very tough to factor in luck, ability to even close a deal, the current houses on the market etc. Looking back to the last 5 years of daily rightmove checks we've only seen (and bid on.. and lost..) 1 house that had amazing value for money, probably outweighing the selfbuild route. But again how do you factor in stress, and time, and risk, and effort.. 

2 hours ago, Buzz said:

To give you an idea of how expensive they look to me, Contactor 2 wants £218820 for his Preliminary's ,  i have done all of the above for a similar amount. 

 

I'd love to see your cost sheets  

[puntloos]

1 hour ago, Simplysimon said:

getting mine done for 9k. sockets, lights, cat 6, ext lights, alarm and cameras, so absolutely!

Would you mind sharing your cost sheet or a quote or something?

[puntloos]

48 minutes ago, Moonshine said:

A couple of things stand out to me on the floor build up

 

123) The materials for this (DPM + joining tape) is probably ~£150, and not a massive job to lay a plastic sheet down and join it, so contractor 1 is pushing it on labour costs i think, contractor 2 is much more sensible but would expect 2 guys to do this in a mornings work.

 

124) Materials, my builder has given me his price list he gets from a local BM, PIR 150mm £74 a sheet, 75mm £35 a sheet. that works out as at ~£38m2 for 225mm, allow 150m2 for wastage, that's £5.7k for the insulation alone. call it £6k when you add on foil tape and expanding foam, maybe a bit more for a 25mm PIR perimeter strip. Given the amount you are buying you could get a good deal from a BM.

 

The remainder works out at about £3k in labour. Assume expensive builders of £250 a day, that's 12 man days! Personally i would like to think that could be done in 4-5 man days, so this looks heavy to the tune of about £1.5k.

That's a very interesting insight in the 'multiplication factor' that they are trying to use to build in their risk, or ha trying to fleece me

 

48 minutes ago, Moonshine said:

 

125) as with 123 materials are similar so  similar comments to 125

 

126) why sand and cement screed? maybe potential saving in liquid screed, try this call a local liquid screeder as you maybe surprised at the cost. i have been quoted for 80m2 of 55mm screed of £1400 + Vat (£17.5 m2). could be a saving for you here, especially contractor 2!

 

Are there any downsides to liquid that I'm not aware of?

[puntloos]

14 minutes ago, Moonshine said:

 

Skips 25 - 30 quoted for? Jesus, How much stuff are they throwing away

 

 

If my maths is right, that is £70/m2 for 100mm block (£7 a block)!!! 😐That is F'ing expensive.

 

35,000/250 = 140.. where do you get 70?

 

If I look at this though - first hit on google: https://www.plumb.build/product/forterra-73n-medium-density-100mm-fenlite-block-floor-grade/6108 - 10 blocks per m2, that's 17 quid 

Seems.. accurate?

 

14 minutes ago, Moonshine said:

Knauf Dri-Therm 

They don't do 200mm thick, so you will have to use two 100mm layers, a quick google

 

https://www.insulationhub.co.uk/product/knauf-dritherm-32-cavity-insulation-100mm/

 

Each pack covers 3.28m2, so doubling up for 250m2, gives around 150 packs. Say 160 packs needed for wastage.

 

That £5.3k in materials. Remainder £4.2k to fit the stuff.

 

Its not nice stuff to fit (i did 150mm if it on my build) due to skin irritation, but its not a fiddly as PIR around openings.

 

Anyway call it 500m2 to fit due to the double layer, that is £8 / m2. Again on the expensive side

Yeah, a little heavy but not insane?

[TonyT]

You can’t win mate so build what you want no point in comparing prices either as some can self build, some can’t do DIY.

 

so listen to your QS.

hope hey are on a fixed fee and not a percentage of the build cost.

 

 

[puntloos]

11 minutes ago, TonyT said:

You can’t win mate so build what you want no point in comparing prices either as some can self build, some can’t do DIY.

Agreed, a lot of limits are just luck/circumstance. Maybe if we tendered with other builders etc etc but at the end of the day at least C1 seems 'ok' .. and C2 is *weird* - I wonder if they made mistakes..

 

11 minutes ago, TonyT said:

so listen to your QS.

hope hey are on a fixed fee and not a percentage of the build cost.

 

Yep, fixed fee 😃

[AliG]

3000-3500/sq metre is not necessarily high nowadays, but would include architects fees etc. My parent's house is in this range, but a part of that is below ground costs for drainage etc. Also it has almost the same ground floor area and roof area as well as a similar kitchen cost and landscaping cost in a smaller house.

 

Some of the numbers are crazy.

 

32000/61000 for light fittings and installation. Looks like you have a lighting designer. I did this myself and sourced all of the larger more expensive fittings directly on Aliexpress where I reckon they cost around 20% of the UK retail price. I would say 20-30k might be reasonable depending on the design. We have big fancy lights in the hall, lounge, dining room, study, WC, master, master en suite, bed 2 and bed 3. All other rooms are GU10s that cost around £75 each fitted today. Looking at the renders there are way more downlight shown than needed. We have 4 downlights in bedrooms that are over 4m x 4m. The kitchen has 16 and is around 70sq metres. I see a lot of LED strips. We have a few, they look nice but are expensive and don't provide great light. Are the renders the actual finished lighting plan. I don't see any impressive looking lights that I would expect for this kind of money, just loads of downlights.

 

39k for a labourer. A lot of this cost should surely be in the individual items. What is the labourer doing over and above helping with these already priced up items?

 

25/30 skips. My parent's house at 2/3 this size is 2/3 finished and I think they have had 4 skips so far. Don't forget that everything that goes in the skip you will have paid for!

 

Edge strip insulation by JGUHEDGE or similar approved - My builder used this, the architect specified 25mm PIR. This thin insulation creates a bad cold bridge.

 

145 White PVC-U Marley - To build such an expensive house and then use PVC guttering would be a shame.

 

Contractor 2's heating costs are insane. We used our own heating contractor.

 

£5000 for wall tiling seems quite low. Suggests only half tiling, again cheap considering the cost of the house.

 

£80k give or take for AV installation. Beyond crazy. I assume this maybe includes projectors, speakers etc and it would still be crazy. I would not dream of letting a builder spec this stuff. How will you know how to work it. Will you have to pay someone by the hour to reprogram it. If you don't know how it works yourself it will be a nightmare to look after. Is it going to make your life easier or harder. What is the point of having sensors in all of the rooms connected back to some management system? Who will look after the management system? What benefits will it provide? I would seriously consider what you want to achieve and if what is necessary.

 

Some of the choices seem a bit cheap for such an expensive house - concrete tiles, half tiling, PVC guttering, On the other hand, some things are way over the top for the size of the house, such as the AV, lighting and heating systems. Try to get a better balance.

 

 

[puntloos]

Hey Ali, thanks for going into such detail. appreciated. Answers below

9 minutes ago, AliG said:

3000-3500/sq metre is not necessarily high nowadays, but would include architects fees etc. My parent's house is in this range, but a part of that is below ground costs for drainage etc. Also it has almost the same ground floor area and roof area as well as a similar kitchen cost and landscaping cost in a smaller house.

 

Some of the numbers are crazy.

 

9 minutes ago, AliG said:

 

32000/61000 for light fittings and installation. Looks like you have a lighting designer. I did this myself and sourced all of the larger more expensive fittings directly on Aliexpress where I reckon they cost around 20% of the UK retail price. I would say 20-30k might be reasonable depending on the design. We have big fancy lights in the hall, lounge, dining room, study, WC, master, master en suite, bed 2 and bed 3. All other rooms are GU10s that cost around £75 each fitted today.

 

One thing I would point out is that GU10's are bad. They are trying to fit a hot(ish) led array in too small space with no cooling so they burn out. There is a certain risk, but even assuming it's safe, proper LED lighting will last a lifetime. But overall yes, lighting designer is an intentional cost

9 minutes ago, AliG said:

Looking at the renders there are way more downlight shown than needed. We have 4 downlights in bedrooms that are over 4m x 4m. The kitchen has 16 and is around 70sq metres. I see a lot of LED strips. We have a few, they look nice but are expensive and don't provide great light. Are the renders the actual finished lighting plan. I don't see any impressive looking lights that I would expect for this kind of money, just loads of downlights.

 

Ah! No absolutely ignore the renders, they are my own and I have not taking into account any of the lighting design, I just kinda stretched a few sensible lights across the house.

 

9 minutes ago, AliG said:

39k for a labourer. A lot of this cost should surely be in the individual items. What is the labourer doing over and above helping with these already priced up items?

 

25/30 skips. My parent's house at 2/3 this size is 2/3 finished and I think they have had 4 skips so far. Don't forget that everything that goes in the skip you will have paid for!

Yeah I think this is excluding the demo too, meaning the demo will be separate. 

 

9 minutes ago, AliG said:

Edge strip insulation by JGUHEDGE or similar approved - My builder used this, the architect specified 25mm PIR. This thin insulation creates a bad cold bridge.

Nice call-out, will make sure we do this properly

9 minutes ago, AliG said:

145 White PVC-U Marley - To build such an expensive house and then use PVC guttering would be a shame.

There's a few considerations around with regards to materials.. for me, I don't care it is plastic, if you can't tell and/or it is actually better. I didn't look this up, I think we had some discussion on guttering elsewhere in this forum but I thought plastic was actually the more practical material?

 

 

9 minutes ago, AliG said:

Contractor 2's heating costs are insane. We used our own heating contractor.

 

£5000 for wall tiling seems quite low. Suggests only half tiling, again cheap considering the cost of the house.

 

£80k give or take for AV installation. Beyond crazy. I assume this maybe includes projectors, speakers etc and it would still be crazy. I would not dream of letting a builder spec this stuff. How will you know how to work it. Will you have to pay someone by the hour to reprogram it. If you don't know how it works yourself it will be a nightmare to look after. Is it going to make your life easier or harder. What is the point of having sensors in all of the rooms connected back to some management system? Who will look after the management system? What benefits will it provide? I would seriously consider what you want to achieve and if what is necessary.

What happened was that I specced a system pretty loosely and the one team came back with a quote. This is what we all ran with but not a lot of critical thougt has been given to the detail need etc. 

 

9 minutes ago, AliG said:

 

Some of the choices seem a bit cheap for such an expensive house - concrete tiles, half tiling, PVC guttering, On the other hand, some things are way over the top for the size of the house, such as the AV, lighting and heating systems. Try to get a better balance.

 

Reasonable.. I don't agree for 'heating', and lighting one can debate.. but indeed AV is certainly true and you're not the first mentioning a few 'cheap choices'.. I guess I'd like to know what price increase I'd get for "one level up" again I'm very practical, so indeed e.g. "slate" vs "slate colored cement tiles".. eh <shrug> as far as I can tell this fall somewhat under the "do we want a tshirt for $, or a tshirt with a nike logo on it for $$$"....

[puntloos]

@AliGand others do make a fair point, this house is perhaps "strangely balanced"... but are you all simply "slate and gutter snobs" or is there a tangible difference in visuals and performance not worth the cost saving.. Would a non-builder - a picky mother in law or somesuch - look at those tiles and pull up her nose? I doubt it but.. maybe?

Edited July 27, 2022 by puntloos

[Indy]

On the topic of balance, what I've gathered from this forum and talking to a lot of other professionals is a fabric first approach. Invest in the building blocks and these will add value to the place in the long term. While you may not care about a concrete tile, the person you're going to try and sell to in the future may not want concrete tiles on a £2m+ house (or some other similar detail that may put them off like uPVC guttering).

 

The areas where you can spend a lot of money very very quickly like AV, home automation, expensive kitchens and bathrooms - are those that will not necessarily add that much 'value' when considering resale in the future, apart from the value that they give you when you're using them. Kitchen styles and designs will change in the next 5 years and you will most likely want to change again, so not worth going over the top. Same with AV kit, depreciates over time and newer tech will make the current stuff obsolete in 5 years anyway.

 

Obviously a lot of this is based on you wanting to get your money back. What you consider as essential, the next person may not and won't be willing to pay for it. If you don't need to sell and this will be a lifetime home, and you can afford to do it - then go for it. Its your money, you're allowed to build exactly what you want and that's the whole point of the self build method. 

[AliG]

My friend recently bought a hosue

from one of Scotland’s biggest house builders.

 

The whole development uses thin cheap looking roof tiles which you can spot from some distance away and considerably cheapen the look of the houses. Same

with PVC rainwater goods.

 

The extra cost of powder coated aluminium guttering and pipes will only maybe be a couple of thousand and it will look so much better. I’d maybe also consider should it be black to match the windows.

 

Reconstituted slate would probably be a more expensive looking alternative to concrete tiles. I am not sure of the cost difference.

 

Often for these items it is things like the brackets and edge trims that cheapen them.

 

 

[puntloos]

19 minutes ago, AliG said:

My friend recently bought a hosue

from one of Scotland’s biggest house builders.

 

The whole development uses thin cheap looking roof tiles which you can spot from some distance away and considerably cheapen the look of the houses. Same

with PVC rainwater goods.

 

The extra cost of powder coated aluminium guttering and pipes will only maybe be a couple of thousand and it will look so much better. I’d maybe also consider should it be black to match the windows.

 

Reconstituted slate would probably be a more expensive looking alternative to concrete tiles. I am not sure of the cost difference.

 

Often for these items it is things like the brackets and edge trims that cheapen them.

 

 

Right now I just want to build something solid (no compromises on things I can't fix later) for as cheap as possible - especially given the risen prices. 

But yeah, a few 1000 quid are probably not going to break the bank..

[Mr Blobby]

On 23/07/2022 at 23:17, puntloos said:

My house design is here - as a reminder

 

 

Here's the two quotes I received so far, combined into one comparison doc by my QS

- contractor 1 is overall cheaper, so the combined doc is using them as the 'focal' point,  but some things stand out where c2 is cheaper. Inquiring minds want to know if we can talk c1 down to c2's price on those items, but I imagine contractors build various cost buffers into their quotes to make it work, and being too rough with them on particulars is unfair? Or?

 

 

 

Firstly, can I say how much I enjoyed reading through your quotes.  Blimey.

 

The ASHP price seems high, they cost about 5k for a small panasonic unit including the KNX interface boards. 

 

I think there are things you can do now to start the process moving that may save you money.  Contact your utilities to price the disconnections. Get your asbestos survey done and get some quotes for demolition from the bigger local demo firms.  All this can take time to sort out and you can probably get the demo done cheaper going directly.

 

[puntloos]

3 hours ago, Mr Blobby said:

 

Firstly, can I say how much I enjoyed reading through your quotes.  Blimey.

 

The ASHP price seems high, they cost about 5k for a small panasonic unit including the KNX interface boards. 

Yeah it's always the question which one is the best, I think the mitsu's are probably the best performance specs (noise level, COP), no idea about build quality, and I guess not in price. Always tough to balance.

3 hours ago, Mr Blobby said:

I think there are things you can do now to start the process moving that may save you money.  Contact your utilities to price the disconnections. Get your asbestos survey done and get some quotes for demolition from the bigger local demo firms.  All this can take time to sort out and you can probably get the demo done cheaper going directly.

 

 

Yeah, I will, the moment we decide to build (or not!)

 

Right now the crucial question is: "Is the self build a better deal than buying something off the market", when all is said and done. 

 

 

[Thorfun]

reading through your quotes makes me thankful I decided to not use a main contractor for our build! at £3k/m² our house would cost us £1.35m. I'm hoping to get it in for half of that. granted I am doing a lot of the work myself so it's taking quite a long time but I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience and learning new skills. project managing the build takes up a lot of time but I enjoy talking to the trades that I have on-site and learning from them by asking questions. I've found that if you show an interest in someones work they're more than happy to talk about how they do things.

 

obviously, you're not a very hands on person @puntloos and so that is why you will end up having to pay the main contractor to do the work. it's just the way of things. you can do it a lot cheaper but it will require a lot more work on your behalf. I understand the 'hand it over and get someone else to do it' mentality, it just didn't work for what we wanted to achieve with our budget.

 

I wish you the best of luck on your project and look forward to seeing the progress.

[puntloos]

4 hours ago, Thorfun said:

reading through your quotes makes me thankful I decided to not use a main contractor for our build! at £3k/m² our house would cost us £1.35m. I'm hoping to get it in for half of that. granted I am doing a lot of the work myself so it's taking quite a long time but I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience and learning new skills. project managing the build takes up a lot of time but I enjoy talking to the trades that I have on-site and learning from them by asking questions. I've found that if you show an interest in someones work they're more than happy to talk about how they do things.

 

obviously, you're not a very hands on person @puntloos and so that is why you will end up having to pay the main contractor to do the work. it's just the way of things. you can do it a lot cheaper but it will require a lot more work on your behalf. I understand the 'hand it over and get someone else to do it' mentality, it just didn't work for what we wanted to achieve with our budget.

 

I wish you the best of luck on your project and look forward to seeing the progress.

 

Thanks - yep, those are the tradeoffs. I can imagine it's quite gratifying to build a house with your own hands, but for me.. well, I was heavily involved in design but I'm going to have to let the professionals do the actual building. Learning that skill from scratch, including doing it poorly for a while and dealing with bad work.. not in the cards.

 

We'll see how it goes (IF we decide to go for it.. will decide that pretty soon). 

[Thorfun]

3 minutes ago, puntloos said:

Learning that skill from scratch, including doing it poorly for a while and dealing with bad work.. not in the cards.

I'm using professionals for the stuff that can be seen and doing the stuff that's hidden myself. that way no one will ever see my bodges. 😉 

[puntloos]

14 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

I'm using professionals for the stuff that can be seen and doing the stuff that's hidden myself. that way no one will ever see my bodges. 😉 

"House burned down, the culprit, Thorfun's kettle was found sealed into the wall, plugged in."

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by puntloos

[James94]

Just read this bit and would like to ask what the best materials to use, i was under the impression that there was only one way that everyone did 25mm pir and then the edge strip, mines from wunda 8mm and about to start this job.

Edge strip insulation by JGUHEDGE or similar approved - My builder used this, the architect specified 25mm PIR. This thin insulation creates a bad cold bridge.

Regards  James

 

[puntloos]

On 27/07/2022 at 16:36, Simplysimon said:

getting mine done for 9k. sockets, lights, cat 6, ext lights, alarm and cameras, so absolutely!

Quick update on this one - so indeed this is lighting design + supply (20K) and the rest - sockets, cables, switches - 10K. 

It excludes alarm/cameras so as before I'd love to see an actual quote but it's not unreasonable I think