Covering all your bases - PM? QS? Neither?

[puntloos]

Employing a main builder and an architect is not a surprising thing when selfbuilding, but even assuming good faith, the builder has a conflict of interest between delivering quickly and cheaply, and doing everything with minute attention to detail. Similarly, an architect is responsible for a good design, but might not care as much if it's executed well. I'd like to have someone who has a ton of this experience and who exclusively cares if my interests are being met.

 

So.. how do I fill that gap? My current idea is to look for a person who is both a certified Quantity Surveyor and a Project manager. This person should be able to keep a close eye on cost, as well as keep an eye on if the builder is following the plan etc.

 

Is my thinking on the right track? In particular:
1/ Is a QS-PM a good idea? Why(not)?

2/ How much time should be needed of this person? Clearly fulltime is overkill, but perhaps 1-2 two-hour site visit per week?

3/ How much should this cost?

4/ Anything else that we're missing? What skills that I myself wouldn't have, would be great to get on board on my behalf?

Edited May 10, 2019 by puntloos

[nod]

If you can find a builder that you can get on with and feel you can trust There is no need for a project manager and most of the larger builders merchants will offer a QS service and cost dverything from you drawings Normally a few hundred if you have an account with them

Im never sure what a project manager would do all day overseeing one house 

But ultimately no one will cate about your project as much as you 

and certainly won’t be as frugal as you when it comes to spending your hard earned cash 

[puntloos]

18 minutes ago, nod said:

If you can find a builder that you can get on with and feel you can trust There is no need for a project manager and most of the larger builders merchants will offer a QS service and cost dverything from you drawings Normally a few hundred if you have an account with them

 

Agreed, but I'm not thinking he'll be "QSing" all that time. Instead, it's more a helpful skill that he can bring to the table when judging if a builder is doing reasonable things at a reasonable price. The main job will still be project management.

 

Quote

Im never sure what a project manager would do all day overseeing one house 

Ah I'll clarify my original post but I fully agree this is not a fulltime job, just enough time to spot issues before they are too irreversible.  

 

Maybe 1-2 site visits a week, 2 hours a pop? I honestly have no idea what amount of time is enough to have a good idea of what is going on on the building site.

 

Edited May 10, 2019 by puntloos

[lizzie]

If you employ a project manager I would urge you not just to look at qualifications and professional recommendations but to go and actually talk to clients he has worked for - recently completed jobs better than current as they will give you a more open and honest opinion than someone who may be stuck in situation with PM and not wanting to say anything until they get out.

 

A good one can save you money and heartache a bad one can not only cost you his hefty fees but a lot more on top. Take care with your choice.

[Russell griffiths]

At the speed a build moves on, 1-2 hours a week will be to late to have spotted something, he will spot them but it will be in and then need rectifying. 

I would think a visit every other day would be more like it, an hour on site will take up 2 hours of someone’s time, I would think you would pay £30-50 an hour so couple of hundred a week, so it’s going to cost 6-10 grand. 

 

Just need to work out if if it’s worth it. 

[ToughButterCup]

8 hours ago, nod said:

[...] 

But ultimately no one will care about your project as much as you and certainly won’t be as frugal as you when it comes to spending your hard earned cash 

 

Which is why I have to do both roles: PM and low-level skill stuff.

But most of all I have to teach myself and learn fast - really fast . Thats the real delight in self building : the discomfort involved in (all) learning.

 

[nod]

8 hours ago, puntloos said:

 

Agreed, but I'm not thinking he'll be "QSing" all that time. Instead, it's more a helpful skill that he can bring to the table when judging if a builder is doing reasonable things at a reasonable price. The main job will still be project management.

 

Ah I'll clarify my original post but I fully agree this is not a fulltime job, just enough time to spot issues before they are too irreversible.  

 

Maybe 1-2 site visits a week, 2 hours a pop? I honestly have no idea what amount of time is enough to have a good idea of what is going on on the building site.

 

Yes you are still better getting a builder on a fixed price 

I’m not sure what a project manager does on. Single house 

Unless He Or She are recruiting individual trades Most people tend to thing a PM has a pool of trusted trades to recruit 

But In reality they ring a round get get anyone who happens to be available at the time 

[lizzie]

@nod you are exactly right.....I could have let my fingers do the walking through the yellow pages!

[PeterW]

A QS or a PM in this scenario will basically swallow any saving you may make in not appointing a main contractor and taking the subs route. A decent PM will be taking on the materials management and scheduling, and ensuring the quality of delivery to an agreed timescale. You can’t do that twice a week for 1-2 hours. 

 

If you are on a firm or fixed price with a builder then a QS will only be adding value to ensure you are getting what you pay for at the stage you make a payment - that’s not an oversight role and again, you will be getting a service whatever you define. 

 

I’ve recently done a staged inspections role for a client where I inspected at each agreed point and undertook snagging and rectification as we went - that was agreed with the main contractor at the initial contract point (not that his site manager was aware initially ....) and that was purely to ensure the build was delivered to specification and also to a quality level. Again, that’s not a PM role but a different service. 

 

All of this depends what you want to achieve in reality, and ultimately, how deep are your pockets ...?? 

[puntloos]

5 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

At the speed a build moves on, 1-2 hours a week will be to late to have spotted something, he will spot them but it will be in and then need rectifying. 

Perhaps but is that my problem? Meaning, if the mistake was the builder's, and "we" spotted it, they still need to handle it out of their pocket?

(don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting a 'hostile' environment between us and the builder)

 

 

5 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

I would think a visit every other day would be more like it, an hour on site will take up 2 hours of someone’s time, I would think you would pay £30-50 an hour so couple of hundred a week, so it’s going to cost 6-10 grand. 

 

Very useful rule of thumb, thank you.  

 

5 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

 

Just need to work out if if it’s worth it. 

 

In a way it's insurance, isn't it. Clearly if everybody is amazing you don't require any oversight (?) but in reality, having that second set of expert eyes whose only goal is to look out for my interest is worth something.

5 hours ago, nod said:

Yes you are still better getting a builder on a fixed price 

 

Problem there is that this builder has a strong incentive to stay within that budget, and therefore - depending on their ethics - could start cutting corners to compensate for their mistakes..

 

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

A QS or a PM in this scenario will basically swallow any saving you may make in not appointing a main contractor and taking the subs route.

 

Interesting question indeed, while I don't yet know if I want a main contractor or purely subs, my idea was to hire the QSPM to also handle for example the selection of the subs

 

 

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

A decent PM will be taking on the materials management and scheduling, and ensuring the quality of delivery to an agreed timescale. You can’t do that twice a week for 1-2 hours. 

 

Good to know, how many hours then?

 

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

If you are on a firm or fixed price with a builder then a QS will only be adding value to ensure you are getting what you pay for at the stage you make a payment - that’s not an oversight role and again, you will be getting a service whatever you define. 

 

Makes sense. As said before I effectively I would love to have someone who cares about all the things I care about, but has massive experience across the entire spectrum. This would fall under that umbrella, surely.

 

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

I’ve recently done a staged inspections role for a client where I inspected at each agreed point and undertook snagging and rectification as we went - that was agreed with the main contractor at the initial contract point (not that his site manager was aware initially ....) and that was purely to ensure the build was delivered to specification and also to a quality level. Again, that’s not a PM role but a different service. 

 

What would you call this then? Frankly I still struggle with separating all the skills that are needed to deliver a good house. We need somebody to cover costs, we need someone to understand scheduling, we need someone who can sniff out people who don't have an attention to detail, we need....

 

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

All of this depends what you want to achieve in reality, and ultimately, how deep are your pockets ...?? 

 

Eh, as I said elsewhere I'm thinking about this mostly as 'insurance' that things don't go too badly, which means that if everything goes smoothly, then either I wasted my money, OR the person was worth their weight in gold. But as you noted there's also specific skills that could be useful to pay them directly for - things like costing, sub selection, material management..

[nod]

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

A QS or a PM in this scenario will basically swallow any saving you may make in not appointing a main contractor and taking the subs route. A decent PM will be taking on the materials management and scheduling, and ensuring the quality of delivery to an agreed timescale. You can’t do that twice a week for 1-2 hours. 

 

If you are on a firm or fixed price with a builder then a QS will only be adding value to ensure you are getting what you pay for at the stage you make a payment - that’s not an oversight role and again, you will be getting a service whatever you define. 

 

I’ve recently done a staged inspections role for a client where I inspected at each agreed point and undertook snagging and rectification as we went - that was agreed with the main contractor at the initial contract point (not that his site manager was aware initially ....) and that was purely to ensure the build was delivered to specification and also to a quality level. Again, that’s not a PM role but a different service. 

 

All of this depends what you want to achieve in reality, and ultimately, how deep are your pockets ...?? 

I agree

i you go the route of a project manager  he or she needs to be there full time You can’t exdpect someone to take responsibility for things that happen while they are not there 

[puntloos]

2 minutes ago, nod said:

I agree

i you go the route of a project manager  he or she needs to be there full time You can’t exdpect someone to take responsibility for things that happen while they are not there 

 

Clearly I only want to spend on things that are 'worth it', no interest in wasting money so whatever we agree on, the person needs to convince me they are worth the $, either by being able to cost less than the savings they can help achieve, or somehow give me value-for-money in the peace of mind, or quality of results area.

 

And with this of course comes another challenge: how would you word a contract in a helpful way. How can you 'test' if the person has delivered on what was promised here.

[nod]

6 minutes ago, puntloos said:

 

Clearly I only want to spend on things that are 'worth it', no interest in wasting money so whatever we agree on, the person needs to convince me they are worth the $, either by being able to cost less than the savings they can help achieve, or somehow give me value-for-money in the peace of mind, or quality of results area.

 

And with this of course comes another challenge: how would you word a contract in a helpful way. How can you 'test' if the person has delivered on what was promised here.

You may find a builder that you really hit it off with 

and has a couple of recent jobs that you can view 

Somtimes worth spending a little more on someone that you feel comparable with 

[Russell griffiths]

Mistakes can only be rectified if spotted, if your bloke only pops in once a week a lot of stuff will get covered up or hidden

a lot can happen in a week. 

He also needs to be hands on checking not just standing in the middle of a room with a clipboard. 

 

 

For example we have a large large steel beam in the centre of the house fixed down with some chemical anchors, for some reason one anchor didn’t set, but by me checking how tight they where I spotted it and changed it, if I had a lot of subbies rushing about it would have been plasterboarded over the next day and the qs would never have known. 

Definetly needs to be on site very regularly. 

[puntloos]

25 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

Mistakes can only be rectified if spotted, if your bloke only pops in once a week a lot of stuff will get covered up or hidden

a lot can happen in a week. 

He also needs to be hands on checking not just standing in the middle of a room with a clipboard. 

 

 

For example we have a large large steel beam in the centre of the house fixed down with some chemical anchors, for some reason one anchor didn’t set, but by me checking how tight they where I spotted it and changed it, if I had a lot of subbies rushing about it would have been plasterboarded over the next day and the qs would never have known. 

Definetly needs to be on site very regularly. 

 

Great points, thanks Russell. I would note though that while someone can clearly not be there 'all the time' (at least- not without being very expensive!), I would say that if a builder is actually 'poor' somehow, they will trip up multiple times, and will fail "in front of my guy" sooner or later. More a 'spot check' approach than a micromanagement one.