What does 'High Specification' really mean.

[SteamyTea]

I have seen the title term used, as well as similar terms like 'high end'.

To me they just seem like marketing puff, and have no real meaning.

If I was building a good house, it would have thicker walls, floor joists, stairs that bear onto a concrete floor. 

Basically things that give a very solid structure.

What I would not consider is anything that is easily replaced, bathrooms, kitchens, doors and windows, which are nice to have, but do not really add real value in my eyes.

A decent heating and ventilation system is important these days, but assuming the basic design is right, the replaceable heat source or MVHR unit is a bit of irrelevant as it can be changed.

 

What do others think constitutes 'quality'?

[Big Jimbo]

High end, quality, means that i have sprinkled my magic wand over it.

[SimonD]

20 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I have seen the title term used, as well as similar terms like 'high end'.

To me they just seem like marketing puff, and have no real meaning.

If I was building a good house, it would have thicker walls, floor joists, stairs that bear onto a concrete floor. 

Basically things that give a very solid structure.

What I would not consider is anything that is easily replaced, bathrooms, kitchens, doors and windows, which are nice to have, but do not really add real value in my eyes.

A decent heating and ventilation system is important these days, but assuming the basic design is right, the replaceable heat source or MVHR unit is a bit of irrelevant as it can be changed.

 

What do others think constitutes 'quality'?

 

I think you've just described properties in the opposite of the order most people put them in. Most people will think less about spending huge amounts of money on kitchens and bathrooms, but will then skimp on a heating system, unless it's a flashy column radiator..

[-rick-]

1 minute ago, SimonD said:

I think you've just described properties in the opposite of the order most people put them in. Most people will think less about spending huge amounts of money on kitchens and bathrooms, but will then skimp on a heating system, unless it's a flashy column radiator..

 

Agree, not how I look at it but I think most people think about touch points, so expensive fixtures and fittings that feel luxury (eg solid metal rather than plastic and name brand 'premium' appliances, etc.

[SteamyTea]

Bit of a tricky one.

At work, I often hear the therm 'I don't get paid enough to do this'.

I pointed out the other day that if they were working at their peak performance, extra money could not make a difference.

I feel the same about expensive items, which to me are generally add ons, not fundamentals.

An example of this is car tyres. I can get a Goodyear for £170, or the ones I have, for £60.  There may be a difference at the very extreme of performance, but as the ABS and stability control both work, I won't see the difference.  I feel the same about a bathtub, or a kitchen work surface (I use a chopping board anyway).

 

Maybe @Nickfromwales can join in as he often mentions the high spec places he works on. 

 

[Big Jimbo]

always try and fit, unbranded items. That way you can say they are handmade. One off, and seriously expensive. I think it was that Northern monkey @nod who said that all the people who viewed his house only ever asked about the boiling water tap.

[Big Jimbo]

I did some work in a place that was 120Million. It had some sort of very fancy Airstream door, that prevented any smell from the swimming pool, entering the rest of the property.

[Big Jimbo]

I built a vanity unit for an en-suite that was £12k. I'd call that high end. It was made of Wenge, marble, included lights, and a shaver socket.  Another had a feature glass panel between Two rooms, that cost £120k. Obviously my vanity unit looked fab, but the glass wall thing looked tacky. Russian Mafia money.

[Oz07]

Id say marketing gimmick used for the bling elements. 

[Crofter]

52 minutes ago, Big Jimbo said:

I built a vanity unit for an en-suite that was £12k. I'd call that high end. It was made of Wenge, marble, included lights, and a shaver socket.  Another had a feature glass panel between Two rooms, that cost £120k. Obviously my vanity unit looked fab, but the glass wall thing looked tacky. Russian Mafia money.

Wow. My entire bathroom cost £700.

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, Crofter said:

Wow. My entire bathroom cost £700.

That is a proper price.

Gets the dirt off just the same as a £10k one.

[Big Jimbo]

I totally agree. Its just people with limitless money, want things that nobody else have. Stupid Mansory Rolls Royce for £800k

[Crofter]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

That is a proper price.

Gets the dirt off just the same as a £10k one.

I don't feel like I've cut any corners. There's genuinely nothing I would do differently even if I had a bigger budget.

 

(Actually there is- I'm never tiling an entire room in metro tiles again!)

[DownSouth]

With you on that - last place we used white mosaics in the bathroom. Every time I went in I could see every single uneven tile. This time it’s 600x600 tiles for us. 
 

High end of quality isn’t about where you shop for your kitchen to my mind, it’s about how thoughtfully the room is designed and how skillfully everything in it is fitted. Buying things that won’t date too - I never want to refit the kitchen again in the new house. 
 

I think quality is things that feel solid to touch too - so fire doors throughout with decent metal handles, quality taps that feel tactile. Just finished geeking out looking at Hansgrohe catalogues and working out what bathroom taps to get. 

[Nickfromwales]

14 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Maybe @Nickfromwales can join in as he often mentions the high spec places he works on. 

It's whatever someone (usually a salesperson) can convince someone else of what it is.

 

A client (spoiled brat 2nd wife of a wealthy old chap) bought an £1800 vanity unit (no basin and no tap) and a £400 extension drawer set to go on the end. 15mm chipboard, and probably £200 of materials / soft close drawer runners / labour involved. By the time there was a sink on top and a tap, the 'sink' had cost near to £4k.

 

Just picking the drawer front up broke the corner off it, terrible design where the mouth of the unit and the drawer front were 45'd and then became ultra thin on the leading edges. Thin vinyl veneer (black) and light chipboard, so any chip or mark was instantly visible. Utter dogshit, and I've bought better off eBay for a 1/5th of the price. Said brat was told by the salesman that is was a high spec blah blah, and she told her new husband to stump up or life would be hellish. After a bit more shopping she'd blown nearly £18k on a bathroom suite and enough tiles to do 1/3 of the walls and floor.

 

Most of it was available online for prob half the price or less, but she wanted the retail therapy and putting on a pedestal, so off they went to be robbed blind in broad daylight with a huge smile on (her) face.

 

The other side of the coin is my sensible clients who want value for money, but not "cheap", so when I explain higher spec systems that come in more expensive than other quotes they have had independently, from their own due diligence, they see where the extra money has gone and appreciate the improvements in quality / longevity / comfort / etc and are then happy to pay the uplift between my quote and the ones they have; most systems are bean-counted to be competitive, so are quite vanilla in terms of initial offerings as most know they're competing against others who have priced off the same plans.

 

The 3rd side of the coin is the minority who ignore my advice and reasoning, go for cheap as they are insistent they have done their own investigations (with no industry experience or actual real life knowledge) and then complain when the uninformed choices they made have backfired and cost more / delivered less etc. To these people who think they know better, I say "fill yer boots".....no skin off my nose!