SPON

[hrc]

Hi, on the ebuild site Peter and others mentioned getting hold of SPON price books, which do you recommend?  Buying them all would be £6 -700! I think somewhere there was mention of even using an older version?

H

[Jeremy Harris]

I, and others here, have older copies as pdf files.  However, now we're running this forum ourselves (the members) we've opted to be a bit more diligent when it comes to copyright, so I'm reluctant to post it here as it would be a breach of the forum T's and C's.

However, if you were to, for example, send me a PM then I might be able to help.............................

SPONS is invaluable for a professional quantity surveyor, and the price well worth paying if it's going to be used a lot.  For a single self-build then it is a bit expensive, especially as the chances are the build will extend longer than the validity of the SPONS data.  It would be nice if SPONS produced a simpler, cut down, pricing guide for DIY'er and self-builders, as I'm sure it would be well-received, provided it was reasonably priced.

[ToughButterCup]

The current edition of SPONS is much better than the 2014 edition because it separates out labour costs. In addition you get a link to an online version of the book where you can easily search for all instances of (say) hardcore. That enables you to look at prices in a variety of contexts.

The massive advantage is the ability to share the pricing information with your supplier / builder, secure in the knowledge that both parties are dealing openly and fairly. At the very least it gives a firm basis on which to start discussions. 

For me, computer-phile that I am, there's nothing quite like a real book to browse and poke around in. Being able to search online as well as read the book is unbeatable.

The book gives a series of local adjustment factors, Outer London being classified as a factor of 1. Lancashire where we are has a multiplier of 0.96 (I think).  In addition, the book does point out that there are highly local variations - such as Sandbanks or maybe Alderley Edge for example. 

It cost me £150. And saved that 10 times over in six months. For someone as green as I am to building, the book's priceless. 

[Wrekin1]

HI, I was checking this out on the internet as I'm desperately looking for some reliable conversion tables (it's one of the things that led me eventually to this forum) to help cost my build and struggling with the conversion of purchases by weight or quantity to the amounts needed per m3 but there are 4 SPONS books, do you mean this one?

http://www.rics.org/uk/shop/Spons-Architects-and-Builders-Price-Book-2016-20211.aspx

Thanks

[Ferdinand]

There's an older (2014?) version of SPONS on the Ebuild site somewhere as a PDF.

Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

There's an older (2014?) version of SPONS on the Ebuild site somewhere as a PDF.

Ferdinand

Unfortunately it is inaccessible, as all attachments and large versions of photos on Ebuild seemed to be locked out now.  Certainly I tried to get back all the attachments that were in my blog there and couldn't retrieve any of them at all.

[Tennentslager]

Free download?

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Just a word of caution.  That link above downloads a pdf document that is not SPONS, but that contains links to what looks like a malicious Russian website.  From the limited look I've had (in a sand box for safety) this is not a link to SPONS.  If you are running a Windows machine, I would urge extreme caution, as my experience is that being diverted to a plain http site on a Russian domain that won't easily resolve to an IP address (which itself is suspicious) is highly likely to result in malware of some description getting to your machine. 

Not my sphere of expertise, I know just enough about this stuff to be dangerous!  The Russian URL it tries to direct to (from the links within the document it downloads) is http:// dzaipdf . ru (DO NOT GO TO THIS URL! I've disabled the link by adding spaces)

[Tennentslager]

Oops my bad.

I did download it before from a college website in N Ireland if I recall.

 

[ProDave]

I have edited Tennants Lager's post to remove the link to save any grief if anyone clicks it before reading Jeremy's warning. For some reason the "reason for editing" does not show in the post.

[Jeremy Harris]

One thing worth noting is that there are an awful lot of fake PDFs around that contain dodgy links purporting to be download links to the document you were really searching for.  Nine times out ten these seem to be Russian domains, and without being racist, I have to say there seems to be far more dodgy stuff on Russian sites than almost anywhere else.

[ProDave]

In defence of Russian sites, Elektro Tanya (or something like that) is often a good source of tv service manuals and I have never had dodgy downloads from them.

[Jeremy Harris]

I agree, I've found loads of old service manuals on a couple of Russian sites, but there seems to be a massive increase in these spoof PDF downloads, that only contain a partly-hidden link to a Russian site.  The one above wasn't a one-off, I've seen dozens of these over the past few months, almost always when I've been searching for documents and used "pdf" in the search term, knowing that the document I was after was in pdf form.  They exploit the ability to embed links within a pdf file, so you download the pdf, only to find a blank page with one or two "download link" icons.  These are links to malicious sites, AFAICS.  Most pdf readers will detect the attempt to open a link, and ask for confirmation, but for a fair few people who are after the document they may not bother to look at what the link really is (as finding link properties in a pdf file isn't entirely obvious).

[curlewhouse]

I have to say that even with an up to date copy of Spons I've found it beyond me to work out with sufficient confidence that I've included every last item the costs, and am putting it to an estimating service for materials at least.

[PeterW]

I used one of the well know services and nearly fell over when I got back my first quote...

 

Given they had very detailed plans, the costs came in just shy of 70% higher than the final version we agreed on.... Most are very busy - mistakes do happen but I was gobsmacked how wrong it could be ..!

 

suffice to say after 3 iterations of me pointing out the problems and a few missed points, I got a decent copy back.... 

 

I've now edited that in excel and have it all formula driven to allow for cost changes, labour rates and variations and have a fully tracked version running ..!!

 

as usual - caveat emptor !

[curlewhouse]

Getting a basic materials one done by my local BM (free) and a full one done by a company, so will be interesting to compare. I need to do what PeterW has done and make a custom one (should be fun since I haven't used excel in about 10 years!) as there are many parts we will be doing ourselves too.