Where to buy bricks and blocks?

[flanagaj]

if you need to purchase 7500 bricks and 1500 blocks, can you get a better price than TP or the builders merchants?

[Mr Blobby]

1 minute ago, flanagaj said:

if you need to purchase 7500 bricks and 1500 blocks, can you get a better price than TP or the builders merchants?

 

Do you have a local manufacturer? 

We have a quarry half a mile away that makes and sells concrete products.  Our builder got ours from the quarry for 45p per 100mm medium density block delivered.  Which is pretty good I think.

[flanagaj]

7 minutes ago, Mr Blobby said:

 

Do you have a local manufacturer? 

We have a quarry half a mile away that makes and sells concrete products.  Our builder got ours from the quarry for 45p per 100mm medium density block delivered.  Which is pretty good I think.

That is a very good price.  I was looking at £2.20 / concrete block.

[Mr Blobby]

9 minutes ago, flanagaj said:

That is a very good price.  I was looking at £2.20 / concrete block.

 

Ouch!

 

Our price was £450 for a thousand, and delivery had to be for a full lorry load.  I think block prices vary a lot by region.  Here in Northern Ireland blocks are a lot cheaper than the South West.

And my builder seems to get good prices on stuff from his various trade accounts of course.

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Mr Blobby

[Buzz]

27 minutes ago, flanagaj said:

if you need to purchase 7500 bricks and 1500 blocks, can you get a better price than TP or the builders merchants?

If you know what you want , brand and type , then Google  is your friend here , just find out what you can buy them for delivered and compare to the BM's if there is not much difference in price then you know there is still a bit of meat on the bone for the merchant and can start negotiating with them . 

I needed 17500 facing bricks the best I could do was 90p a brick delivered but ended up paying 12k with MKM but I had to take them in one go .

Edited September 13, 2023 by Buzz

[BadgerBadger]

The price shown on big builder's merchants websites (Jewson, Travis Perkins etc.) are way above the going rate.  You should have no real trouble getting the going rate, provided you can show them you know what it is 😉

 

Work out exactly what you want then do a round robin of merchants. Get a price from the first, knock 5-10% off the number and then ask the second if they can beat it.  If they can, they'll likely come back fractionally under the price you gave them. Knock another 5-10% off and go to a third. Keep going until you start getting "no" back.

 

You'll find some local merchants are great and give you an honest price off-the-bat, so I always aim to order with those if I can.

 

Don't forget to take delivery logistics etc. into account, it can be much cheaper if you can take a full load direst from the supplier than if they need to take it to the merchants yard first.

Edited September 13, 2023 by BadgerBadger

[joe90]

Yes ring around, i sourced my bricks, 11,000 of them, cheaper direct from the manufacturer and way cheaper than any BM. Even my bricky was surprised how cheap I got them.

[Conor]

Find a manufacturer and order direct. This is we got (back in early 2021). BMs were about 50p each at this time.

 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Conor

[Blooda]

If you go to several Builders Merchants make sure you have several site address's, not including the real one.

 

Just saying. 

[joe90]

14 minutes ago, Blooda said:

If you go to several Builders Merchants make sure you have several site address's, not including the real one.

 

Just saying. 

Why? I got loads of quotes but only one site address 🤷‍♂️