Where to start

[mikea99]

I’m close to starting my first major renovation and I’m feeling more and more clueless the further down the path I go towards starting the build.  

 

I have planning permission, building regulations approval is imminent and I am starting to think about who will build the house.

 

Currently I have a 220sqM bungalow that will increase to 500sqM on two floors when built.  My plan is to phase the build, the first phase being a weathertight shell built by a main contractor to a fixed price funded from cash I have access to. From there I intend to project manage the second phase myself (doing a fair amount of the work myself) using individual trades on a time and materials basis to finish the build over a 6-12 month period funded from my monthly salary.

 

The bungalow isn’t currently habitable.

 

I’m a bit of detail person and intend on specifying the requirements in fairly fine detail. For example, if I think about the doors I know exactly which hinges and door furniture will be used.  Another example is that I expect to use a particular style of MK light switch, plug socket etc so I will be specifying the materials to be used in quite some detail and not leaving this kind of choice up to the contractor.

 

I’ve used an architect to draw up the plans and get planning permission. But, he is insistent I go to tender (using him to oversee the process) because of the size and (in his words) the complexity of the build. There’s a fair amount of open plan space for the living room and kitchen with the first floor held up by what seems like a lot of steel as well as a cantilever bedroom/balcony.  In the architect’s mind the tender process will find us a builder who is able to handle this but he wants to part me with £4000 for the pleasure of executing the tender process. 

 

Whilst I don’t have any building PM experience I’m a long in the tooth IT programme director and have a fair amount of sizeable IT project delivery experience so I feel confident that I can deliver phase 2 myself– surely some of my skills and experience will be transferable!

 

Incidentally, my architect has consistently tried to discourage me from phasing the approach and is quite insistent I abandon  my choice of phasing the build.

 

It would be great to know what the forum thinks about how I should take this forward, my approach to phasing the build and how I should get from my current position to a place where I have a builder appointed. Am I in denial and just plain ignorant of the risk the architect seems to be calling out?  Would you take a different approach to tendering the contract other than using the current architect?

 

I do have a trusted acquaintance who is a QS who will complete the bill of materials and schedule of works.

 

Cheers.

Edited September 12, 2018 by mikea99
typo in para starting "whilst i don't have ...' CBA counting the paragraph numbers!

[Declan52]

Welcome.

Can you put up a sketch of the plans to see how much work is involved to get a better understanding of the amount of work your looking to do.

As with every major renovation there will always be a risk to what you will find when you start to peel away the old house. How old is the current house??

There is nothing wrong with how you intend to phase the build. You are basically treating it like most here would treat a timber frame build. You let someone else do the major work and then you take the reins and bring it home. Nothing wrong with that approach. 

In terms of the build are you going brick/block or timber or something else??

As far as all the trades go have you these all lined up ready to go?? 

Has your mate the QS given you a costing of the build and a rough time scale??

[newhome]

Welcome! 500m2 is a very big house! There are quite a few IT folk on here who are managing their own builds. @ultramods had a similar decision to make re going with the architect oversight or doing it himself and he chose the latter. There is a thread here that discusses the pros and cons.

 

 

There are people on here who have run into trouble using the architect or a professional PM because they haven’t done a great job, or who have run into trouble doing it themselves for various reasons. My personal view is that if you have a project management background you could do it yourself but you must have the time to do a decent job, and you must be prepared to learn at a rapid speed as building is quite different from IT. The other issue is finding trades. Seems to be a common issue wherever you are just now.

 

This site is amazingly helpful if you run into trouble. There is always someone on hand to give great advice on almost anything or offer virtual tea and sympathy when things don’t go quite to plan. 

 

Have a good trawl through this site. There are countless posts here where you will learn a lot. Here’s one from just the other day. 

 

 

 

 

 

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[Mr Punter]

You may want to consider demolition of the existing building.  This will free up some potential design restraints, make the construction simpler and you will be able to reclaim the VAT.

[ToughButterCup]

14 hours ago, mikea99 said:

I’m close to starting my first major renovation and I’m feeling more and more clueless the further down the path I go towards starting the build.  

[...]

 

Welcome to the club where even the clued-up find themselves clueless at some stage or other. There are some who haven't got the emotional intelligence to admit it......

 

The direct answer to your question is - somewhere .

 

In the words of DH Lawrence, each flow is related to every other flow. That's to say, no matter where you choose to start, the process of starting somewhere inevitably makes you look at its precedents.

 

In terms that I suspect you might feel comfortable, where you can, choose a code library, or content development network if possible.  But do write some psuedo-code first, and then run it past us.

 

I chose to think of things from under the ground upwards. I started thinking about soft and smelly stuff and worked upwards from there. 

It worked for us.

 

Good luck, and welcome!

[mikea99]

Thanks for replies folks, much appreciated.

 

@Declan52

 

Thanks for the reassurance

 

1, I've attached copies of the plans. They are not the most up to date (mostly changes to windows and positions of chimney stack) but a fair representation of what I'm building.

2, Currently the house has a small inner core from early 1900s but mostly it's a collection of extensions from the 60s to 80s. I've stripped back most of the interior to bare brick and I'm ready to take the roof off. Structurally the walls are in good shape with no horror stories identified by the architect or structural engineer.

3, In terms of trades for phase 2 - none identified yet other than an electrician but I've a good 12 months before I need them so i'm not too stressed about that just yet.

4, My QS hasn't started working on the material costs or schedule, ETA for  that is by end of October.  

5, Building material are blockwork clad in timber / stone cladding with some of the steel roof cladding the roof. I'm expecting the main contractor to fix the timber cladding I'll specify and use a specialist installer for the roofing (currently being priced against the drawings and BOM supplied by the roofing manufacturer).

 

@newhome

 

You're right it is a large house but the area of the building only marginally increases - most of the additional space and volume comes from the addition of the first floor. But, my architect does keep reminding me it's large and my budget won't stretch to build it (failing to appreciate that I can fund the weatherproof - phase 1 without issue and will fund phase 2 over a further 12 months making the total build cost achievable to me.)

 

Thanks for re-posting the threads, I'll take a look at them.

 

I'd happily attempt to PM it myself but I just don't have the time with my work commitments and I can't afford to take a sabbatical as I need the income to fund the 2nd phase.

 

@the_r_sole

 

The architect will produce most of the tender documentation required with the SoW being supplied by my QS acquaintance. I'm opting for this approach as 1, I trust him and 2, he's built 3 houses of his own over the last 20 years so comes with some practical experience that I don't feel the architect has.

 

From your reply I can already see more clearly why I need to get the tender process absolutely right and how fundamental it is to a successful build. I suspect you're right the £4k will be well spent but I still need the architect to work harder to sell it to me so I know I'm getting fair value for money.

 

@Mr Punter

 

I did think about demolition and rebuild but decided against it  as there is a covenant on the garden that added hassle to what we could or couldn't do when it came to building. On balance, it was the least hassle approach without burning more cash and time on solicitors to challenge the landowner.

 

If anyone is vaguely interested I'd be happy to keep the thread updated on how this plays out. 

 

Cheers

[mikea99]

@recoveringacademic .. cheers, 

 

"

In the words of DH Lawrence, each flow is related to every other flow. That's to say, no matter where you choose to start, the process of starting somewhere inevitably makes you look at its precedents.

 

In terms that I suspect you might feel comfortable, where you can, choose a code library, or content development network if possible.  But do write some psuedo-code first, and then run it past us.

"

 

BRILLIANT

[newhome]

Has it been empty for 2 years? 

[AliMcLeod]

9 minutes ago, mikea99 said:

But, my architect does keep reminding me it's large and my budget won't stretch to build it (failing to appreciate that I can fund the weatherproof - phase 1 without issue and will fund phase 2 over a further 12 months making the total build cost achievable to me.)

 

I'm sure you've done the sums, but if your QS has not provided you with any figures yet, how can you know you have enough to get the weatherproof structure up? Perhaps you just have lots of funds sitting there (including a 20-30% contingency), in which case many here will be envious  Did you use a £ per m2 to estimate what it would take to get to that point?

Edited September 12, 2018 by AliMcLeod

[mikea99]

@newhome it becomes vacant for 2 years in February 2019. You're thinking of 5% VAT on the build cost right?

 

@AliMcLeod i'm lucky enough to have a fairly decent pot of cash available to me and I've spent the last 6 months pricing up the big ticket items so have a rough bill of materials that comes in under what I have available to spend. The unknown right now is what the labour costs will be but my working assumption is that this will be within the overall budget I have for phase 1. If I have a nasty surprise when the QS does his job I'll have to re-cut things.

Edited September 12, 2018 by mikea99
Another typo, should read "budget i have for phase 1" in penultimate sentence.

[Declan52]

That will be a very nice house when it's complete.

What about coming to an arrangement with the architect over his costs. When your QS comes back with the costings split them into your 2 phases. If your architect can bring it in at the costings for phase 1 with a +- X% then he gets his money. You will have to come to some sort of deal about what the penalties will be if he doesn't.  

[newhome]

8 minutes ago, mikea99 said:

@newhome it becomes vacant for 2 years in February 2019. You're thinking of 5% VAT on the build cost right?

 

 

Yes that would be a decent saving. 

[mikea99]

@Declan52 - it's a good idea and I'd thought about suggesting something similar. I'm yet to raise the subject with the architect but i'll give it some thought and test his appetite.

[Triassic]

The other problem you might encounter is the tender returns won’t reflect the tender documents. I recently send out a tender document and drawings for a basement, in return I get two nill responses, a very detailed and very costly proposal and a one page A4 costing broken down into four headings. In the end I managed the job myself using subcontractors and came in £10k lower than the lowest price. 

 

Ps... Just to put the savings into context, the lowest quote was £50k and the highest £150k. Round here your lucky to get anyone to do a quote, they’ll happily work on a day rate and are bombed out with work!

Edited September 12, 2018 by Triassic

[mikea99]

@Triassic thanks - that's quite a difference in the value of the quotes you got back Were you able to easily compare them?

 

I'm tending to think that I insist there are payment milestones associated with the production of the tender document its return and final award to incentivise the architect and get some value from what could turn out to be an expensive white elephant.  For example I'm thinking of performance criteria that says a minimum of 6 tender invites will be sent out with a minimum expectation that 4 good responses are received back (still not got my head around how to define good / quality so as to avoid it just being about useless responses being sent back to bump up the numbers).  If we only get 2 replies back the architect gets a percentage of the milestone payment associated with replies and if I get none, he doesn't get anything.

 

Not sure how he will react to this idea but I'm not planning on paying for something I don't get.

 

[Triassic]

5 minutes ago, mikea99 said:

that's quite a difference in the value of the quotes you got back Were you able to easily compare them?

In a word no! It’s Impossible to compare a one page response with the tender document.

 

I’ve got this horrible feeling your going to be disappointed in the tendering process, this is not IT. Most builders have more than enough work to even bother pricing tenders

Edited September 12, 2018 by Triassic

[mikea99]

@Triassic you may well be right - and adds to my belief the architect needs to earn his keep so that if I get nothing meaningful back he's not paid for an unsuccessful outcome.

 

I'll update the thread when I get through this stage with my experience.

 

 

 

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[Triassic]

15 minutes ago, mikea99 said:

@Triassic you may well be right - and adds to my belief the architect needs to earn his keep so that if I get nothing meaningful back he's not paid for an unsuccessful outcome.

I totally agree with you there!

 

You might be pleasantly surprised with his delivery outcome.