How to calculate overall cost per m2

[2104GJ]

Jack am I right in thinking that you didn't use a builder to oversee the whole build but brought trades on when needed?  How long did the build take?  Did you design the house yourself? 

[Trw144]

Think we will come in at around £1250-1300 m2 all done on 330m3 build. Project managed myself - German kitchen, hi end bathrooms, home automation, glass stairs, balcony etc. Again, I m another who has given up worrying on numbers - I m comfortable in the knowledge that the mortgage on our new house will be smaller than the one I had 5 years ago on 3 bed semi that was worth 4 times less.

[jayroc2k]

6 hours ago, 2104GJ said:

I find it deeply depressing reading some of the m2 costs that people are quoting-where do you all live? We are in Hampshire, within the new SDNP, where house and land prices are astronomical. To add to this, as curlewhouse noted, planning, additional reports, planning appeal consultants and more, all add many thousands to the end cost.  But the biggest barrier to building here is the m2 cost- from £2.5-3,500 per 2m.  Have we just met the wrong builders?  But i THINK not as we have spoken to many and house builders who say £3,000 per m2 is becoming the norm.

 

When i was considering a London build, the build cost was from £2500 (self managed, individual trades) to £3500 using a single contractor and decent finishes.

 

Above does not include fees, build cost generally exclude fees.  Reason is simple really, there are many builders doing extensions and large contractors doing multi-storey apartments, the market for one off houses is small, hence, few contractors to choose from. Also, city plots have poor access, in tight plots so you can't store much on site leading to lots and lots of small deliveries...

 

Small plots also mean inefficient house shapes, not a perfect 2 storey square box.

 

And of course labour cost is higher, labourers on £120 a day, skilled members on £250-£400 a day, the contractor has to add his premium and don't expect him to earn under 50k a year or he may as well become a trades man and earn more.

 

 

[Bitpipe]

1 hour ago, 2104GJ said:

Jack am I right in thinking that you didn't use a builder to oversee the whole build but brought trades on when needed?  How long did the build take?  Did you design the house yourself? 

 

This is what we did and it ran pretty smoothly - you definitely save the main contractor overhead at the cost of some pencil chewing and phone calls.

 

That said, by opting for a fairly comprehensive timber frame package leaving us with a well insulated, airtight structure with all internal stud walls and temp stairs. This made it pretty easy to commence first fix plumbing and electrics on the inside and  to get windows in and roofing & render on the outside.

 

From there, first fix joinery, plastering and second fix work follows on.

 

Trickiest bit is finding good trades, we were lucky to get to know a few other (roughly nearby) self builders such as Jack and HerbJ and rotated some trades between us.

 

[jayroc2k]

Best to split it into packages, 

- ground work

- shell (timber frame company, ICF, SIPS)

- internal fit-out

 

That way you are not too nitty gritty on management and can save on using a single contractor.

 

I spoke to a couple who built a house in London, its their second self-build and they promised themselves that the next and final one would be a turnkey solution. The process was very painful and they estimated the savings was 50-60k at best. They also concluded that apart form then fantastic joiner, they would not recommend a single trades person they used, all had no attention to detail and did not share their passion for an well insulated house.

 

[Declan52]

It's all a matter of who you know. I worked on sites for years so knew everyone that I needed to do jobs on my house and who I could trust. If you know nobody at all then it's probably better to employ a main contractor who will run the show and just leave you to sign the cheques. Most people are in between where they will let a builder do certain jobs and then they will either get friends and family in or do it themselves. 

So how much you end up paying basically depends on who you know.

[Bitpipe]

Maybe we were just lucky but as inexperienced self builders, we managed to get decent trades across the board. Some were better than others but even the weaker ones were still pretty decent. None came without some kind of personal recommendation.

 

We found that having strong start with the groundworker (basement) and MBC (frame) kept the up the quality with the follow on trades.

 

Only dodgy ones were the scaffolders but I'm told that's par for the course

[jack]

3 hours ago, 2104GJ said:

Jack am I right in thinking that you didn't use a builder to oversee the whole build but brought trades on when needed?  How long did the build take?  Did you design the house yourself? 

 

No builder other than MBC.  We oversaw all trades (which can be stressful, for sure).

 

We knocked the bungalow down in November 2014, groundworks happened over Christmas and into January.  MBC came onsite in February (from memory).  We moved into the house before Christmas 2015.  I don't doubt we could have knocked 2 months off that if we'd pressed harder (and had any idea what we were actually doing!)

 

The house was designed by a local architect.  He did a great job, both on the design and detailing (other than one or two weathering details we redesigned with help from others and ebuild).

[jack]

21 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

Maybe we were just lucky but as inexperienced self builders, we managed to get decent trades across the board. Some were better than others but even the weaker ones were still pretty decent. None came without some kind of personal recommendation.

 

We found that having strong start with the groundworker (basement) and MBC (frame) kept the up the quality with the follow on trades.

 

Only dodgy ones were the scaffolders but I'm told that's par for the course

 

We had good and bad, but very little terrible and very little that blew me away in a positive sense.  

 

Scaffolders were absolute carp - had them back onsite three times to do what was shown on a very simple drawing.  They just couldn't cope with the idea that the scaffolding didn't just follow the ground-floorplan because of a couple of overhangs.

[Declan52]

Scaffolders are just monkeys that can use a wrench. Can count the amount of times on one hand I walked on scaffold and went my god this steady instead of the usual holy shit this is like walking on a ship going to Scotland in a storm.

[Mikey_1980]

10 hours ago, jack said:

 

We had good and bad, but very little terrible and very little that blew me away in a positive sense.  

 

Scaffolders were absolute carp - had them back onsite three times to do what was shown on a very simple drawing.  They just couldn't cope with the idea that the scaffolding didn't just follow the ground-floorplan because of a couple of overhangs.

our scafolders were great to work with, they delivered what MBC requested to start with, and change the lifts or went up further whenever MBC or the Window company needed it changing.  They didn't even charge us for the additonal 16 weeks that we ended up having it hire as they didn't need it for any other jobs and it was free storage to them.

 

To top it all off they brought all our security fencing off us for the same price that I paid for it, he was happy as he rented it out the same day he collected from us.

 

However they were the ones that are builder recomended to us, I have no idea as to wether they were cheap/expensive as I didn't bother going and getting any other quotes as I knew the feelings from Ebuild on Scafolders.

[Crofter]

My build is working out at just under £1000/m2 if I include everything except land costs and final decorating/furnishing. If I take out the drainage system, services, and access, the actual building itself is about £500/m2.

But, and it is a big but, this is because I have literally done everything myself except for driving the digger. So what you are seeing is materials costs only (plus plant hire). The spec is reasonably high (3G alu clad windows, high levels of insulation, decent woodburner). It will have taken a year of my life full time, and a year or more part time prior to that. All for a 43m2 bungalow! The small size is what makes it feasible to go completely DIY, but it also pushes the price per m2 up a hell of a lot.

If I build another one, it will be bigger, and I will get a labourer...

[ProDave]

I saved the scaffold hastle by buying my own.  Like having your own digger, it is so nice not to have any pressure on time to get a job done and scaffold off hire. and being a scaffold tower system (kwikstage) it is dead easy to alter it around as jobs need.
 

[Stones]

10 hours ago, Crofter said:

My build is working out at just under £1000/m2 if I include everything except land costs and final decorating/furnishing. If I take out the drainage system, services, and access, the actual building itself is about £500/m2.

But, and it is a big but, this is because I have literally done everything myself except for driving the digger. So what you are seeing is materials costs only (plus plant hire). The spec is reasonably high (3G alu clad windows, high levels of insulation, decent woodburner). It will have taken a year of my life full time, and a year or more part time prior to that. All for a 43m2 bungalow! The small size is what makes it feasible to go completely DIY, but it also pushes the price per m2 up a hell of a lot.

If I build another one, it will be bigger, and I will get a labourer...

 

It really brings home how expensive it is to build a modest small house  If you had paid someone the national average wage (£26500) and they had taken a year start to finish, you would be up at £1600 or so per m2.  Highlights the really quite significant impact servicing a site can have.

[Crofter]

A team of proper tradies would have done everything in a fraction of the time it has taken me. Much of my time has been spent standing with hands in pockets, trying to figure out where to go next. This is one of the reasons I have turned down offers of help because I don't want to end up in a blind-leading-the-blind situation or people to feel that they are wasting their time sitting around not donig anything.

As to the penalties for a small house, it is not really a surprise and you just have to live with it. About half my total spend is going on things that are essentially fixed costs. The drainage system would have cost maybe 50% more if it had to serve a bigger house, but everything else would have stayed the same.

Of course, seeing as it is a portable building, one day I might tow it away with a tractor and built a bigger house in its place...

[jack]

11 hours ago, Crofter said:

Much of my time has been spent standing with hands in pockets, trying to figure out where to go next. 

 

I know that feeling so well!

[vivienz]

On 10/10/2016 at 14:08, 2104GJ said:

I find it deeply depressing reading some of the m2 costs that people are quoting-where do you all live? We are in Hampshire, within the new SDNP, where house and land prices are astronomical. To add to this, as curlewhouse noted, planning, additional reports, planning appeal consultants and more, all add many thousands to the end cost.  But the biggest barrier to building here is the m2 cost- from £2.5-3,500 per 2m.  Have we just met the wrong builders?  But i THINK not as we have spoken to many and house builders who say £3,000 per m2 is becoming the norm.

Ye gods!  That's an outrageous cost per m2.  We're in Dorset and I've seen a few architects over the last few weeks and they are all coming in at a 2k/m2 ballpark figure at the moment.  That's a very rough guess as we don't have plans yet but they seem to think that it's in that region.  I'm aiming for £1500, expecting it to be around £1700 - £1800 but prepared for £1900 as we haven't done this before.  I believe it's called planning for the worst and hoping for the best.