Help- Tender costs too high

[Mrs S]

10 hours ago, bassanclan said:

The design is far too complicated to be brought in on a £1000/sqm budget.

The architect has not understood your financial constraints at the start.

With tweaks you might get a similar looking house at a lower cost, but would mean going back to planning etc.

Thanks,  but our budget excluding what we paid for the plot is £1300-£1450/sqm

[ProDave]

10 minutes ago, Mrs S said:

Thanks,  but our budget excluding what we paid for the plot is £1300-£1450/sqm

I think the point we are all making is you won't build that house for your budget and sadly it looks like your architect has designed a house that cannot be built for the budget you set him.

 

In any other business if you ask someone to design something that meets certain parameters and they designed something different you would have reasonable expectation to get redress somehow.  I would be going back to the architect and saying "this was your brief, you failed"

 

In  our case I knew we had a small budget, so I designed a house that was just a rectangular box with few frills, and this will come in at about £1000 per square metre with me doing a LOT of the work myself.  We don't have lots of different bits to the house, we don't have flat roofs with walk on balconies, we don't have acres of glass etc etc.

 

I still think your way forward is simplify the house so you can afford to build it now, perhaps smaller than you really want, but designed such that you can extend it later to eventually get what you want.

[Mrs S]

13 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

A few points:

 

The flat roof above the dining has not been designed with a fall and one is required.  This may mean a step up to the balcony area from the hall.  Price the terrace separately as it is likely to be very expensive once balustrade and paving is added.

 

There is lots of East facing glazing to bed 1 so the sun will be there first thing (although in Scotland this is not a given).  Curtains will be very hard to achieve and you may well get overheated in the morning.  Unless you have mountains looking up I would go for normal windows or at least price them in comparison.  Windows are much costlier than walls and far worse at insulating.

 

Get the facing materials priced for comparison. I imagine the stone is fairly pricey so you could reduce it where the external fan units are.  There seems to be some metal cladding, which can also be expensive.  Look at any other local materials and get prices for these too. As per earlier, you could finish the roof in concrete tiles and save a fortune.

 

Make the downstairs shower wheelchair accessible and fit the walls out for future grab rails, seat etc. Consider making it a wet room.

Sorry, what do you mean by a “fall”? There is going to be a slight step from the hall onto the balcony. This has already been passed by BW & planning.

I understand where you are coming from regarding the large glazing, but we are directly on the coast and have a stunning view, hence why the windows have been designed as such. It’s possible to get blinds to suit your window shape, which should help with the early morning sun.

We have taken the step to reduce our facing materials, and are putting it by planning to get the ok. Concrete tiles are a definite no go, we have to use slate, as we are in a conservation coastal area. We’ve already had to change our roof design, as it “wasn’t in keeping with the area” ?

The downstairs shower room is already designed to be wheelchair accessible.

[Jeremy Harris]

As a tip, we had blinds made to fit our front gable glazing.  Be prepared for a hefty bill, as there are only a few companies who are able to make blinds to fit a gable and they are far from being cheap (think thousands, not hundreds).  The blinds do nothing to keep the solar gain down, unfortunately, we needed to fit external infrared reflecting film to the windows to help reduce that, but the blinds do add privacy.  With hindsight, we could have saved money by opting to fit smart glass to this elevation, as even though it would have cost perhaps £1000/m² for the glass, it would have been worth it overall.

[lizzie]

@Mrs S I feel for you.  Wanting tips to cut budget but not wanting them if you see what I mean.

 

I think your budget is low for your house design.  My house is not a square house it has all sorts of angles and an angled roof.  That all costs a lot more than a square box.  I dont want to tell anyone on a public forum what per sq m I spent because I dont want to think about it myself LOL but will say luckily were able to to afford it, just hadn't planned to spend so much, overspend wasn't all on top end finishes either I had factored that into budget.

 

If it were me I would look at areas that I absolutely would not compromise on i.e. your glazing to take in your view, then areas where you cannot compromise i.e. your roof covering due to planning conservation area etc.  Then I would take a long hard look at what is left and see where costs (if any) can be cut and see what could be done.

[ProDave]

Our planners started on the "must be slate roof" tack, but I argued.

 

Eventually they accepted Marley Edgemere Riven finish as a concrete tile that looks close enough to slate to be acceptable.

[Jeremy Harris]

On 28/05/2019 at 08:35, ProDave said:

Our planners started on the "must be slate roof" tack, but I argued.

 

Eventually they accepted Marley Edgemere Riven finish as a concrete tile that looks close enough to slate to be acceptable.

 

 

Ours were the same.  They started off by saying they would only accept slate or hand made clay tiles.  I fitted Ikoslate (recycled plastic made to look like slate) and they couldn't refuse as they weren't able to spot the difference between that and real slate.  Anyway, their case was blown out of the water when I pointed out that the listed building opposite (which was being used to restrict what we could do) had a roof covered in old asbestos slate.

[recoveringbuilder]

Sorry to hijack the thread but can I ask @JSHarris about your reflective film, unfortunately we omitted to realise that there would be so much solar gain from the big south facing cathedral window and although summer has still to come to Scotland, the few days we have had of sunshine have made the room this window is in very hot! I was looking at having shutters made but a quote of £10k has put paid to this, can you tell me about this film and approximate cost please 

[Mrs S]

6 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

Ours were the same.  They started off by saying they would only accept slate or hand made clay tiles.  I fitted Icoslate (recycled plastic made to look like slate) and they couldn't refuse as they weren't able to spot the difference between that and real slate.  Anyway, their case was blown out of the water when I pointed out that the listed building opposite (which was being used to restrict what we could do) had a roof covered in old asbestos slate.

Interesting, thanks for that, I’ll look into them ??

[Jeremy Harris]

On 28/05/2019 at 09:01, Christine Walker said:

Sorry to hijack the thread but can I ask @JSHarris about your reflective film, unfortunately we omitted to realise that there would be so much solar gain from the big south facing cathedral window and although summer has still to come to Scotland, the few days we have had of sunshine have made the room this window is in very hot! I was looking at having shutters made but a quote of £10k has put paid to this, can you tell me about this film and approximate cost please 

 

The films we used were Solargard and  3M, with the cheaper Solargard Sentinel Plus on the front glazing, where we wanted privacy as well (a neighbour decided to cut down a load of really tall leylandii).  Although the Sentinel Plus was cheaper it's still an idea to be sitting down when you get the quote!  The more expensive film is just as IR reflective, but barely has any tint to it, and we have that on the East facing bedroom windows. 

 

There are a few threads here covering it, and also an excellent one by @NSS regarding his Sage Glass (I wish we'd opted for this now, despite the apparently high cost).

 

This is the thread for Sage Glass: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/2957-sageglass-live/

 

This thread has details of the films we used: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/6474-window-film-further-info/?tab=comments

 

And this one has more useful info and pictures: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/308-window-films-for-uv-protection/?page=1

 

Sorry for the thread drift!

[Bitpipe]

1 hour ago, Mrs S said:

Sorry, what do you mean by a “fall”? There is going to be a slight step from the hall onto the balcony. This has already been passed by BW & planning.

I understand where you are coming from regarding the large glazing, but we are directly on the coast and have a stunning view, hence why the windows have been designed as such. It’s possible to get blinds to suit your window shape, which should help with the early morning sun.

We have taken the step to reduce our facing materials, and are putting it by planning to get the ok. Concrete tiles are a definite no go, we have to use slate, as we are in a conservation coastal area. We’ve already had to change our roof design, as it “wasn’t in keeping with the area” ?

The downstairs shower room is already designed to be wheelchair accessible.

 

A fall is the angle built into a flat roof (usually 15%) that enables rain water to flow off it to a gutter. If it's completely flat then you'll just have a big puddle.

 

The fall means that if you want to use it as a balcony, you need to install a deck over it that is level - we did this on two small balconies (1m x 3m) and it cost about £5.5k supply & fit inc glass (ex VAT) for both together.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Bitpipe

[soapstar]

19 hours ago, Mrs S said:

Hi @soapstar, we didn’t receive detailed quotes from either builder, which perturbed me ever so slightly, as I like to know what I’m paying for. Having previously done some homework with our costings, we know that we are being overcharged for some of the products ie the sewage treatment plant is £3k more than if we purchase it ourselves!  

After meeting with @ultramods, my husband and I have decided to go down the sub contractor route. I will PM the build, along with my husband when he is at home, this will hopefully allow us to build a house within our budget without having to sacrifice some of the design features.

Good luck with your build ?

 

Hello @Mrs S. Yes I understand where you are coming from, a quick look at the price for an ASHP and you can see we could already save £1,500 compared to using a sub contractor for plumbing. We have just actually received a breakdown of costs from one builder which still doesn't go into much detail, for example they state X amount for builder, X amount for plumber and so on, without detailing the work,  slightly frustrating!

 

I would be very interested in knowing which sub contractors you are considering and if you can recommend any in the area. Our aim of using a main contractor is looking less likely by the minute! 

 

 

16 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

 

Have you a copy of the Home Builders Bible?

 

Pretty much does what you ask, using a model house to base the numbers around. You can also get hold of SPONs to price individual elements.

 

However, may be worth getting a QS to independently draw up a costings worksheet from your plans - we did this (£1500 plus a PHPP analysis) and it was money well spent as I was able to target each individual element and set my self the goal of beating the price.

 

Regarding getting sub trades vs a single contractor, not that complicated really.

 

You just need to break the job into logical stages by trade and then go get quotes to compare.

 

On our build we had the following trades/contractors in the following order (quite a few trades overlapped at end)

 

- Electrician (site prep for relocation of existing power, supply to caravan and container/site office)

- Groundworks (demolition, site prep, basement & services)

- Scaffolding (design & erect, 12 week hire)

- Timber frame (design, supply, erection & return to insulate & finish airtightness detail after doors & windows fitted).

- Windows & doors (supply & fit contract)

- Roofer (supply & fit, also fitted the velux that I purchased directly)

- Render contractor (supply & fit)

- Guttering contractor (soffit, fascia, parapets, guttering & downpipes)

- Front door (supply & fit)

- Electrical first fix

- Plumbing first fix

- Joiner (boxing in, door frames, pocket door preparation etc)

- Plasterer (supply & fit board & skim coat)

- Decorators (supply & paint)

- Tiling (I supplied)

- Plumbing second fix

- Flooring install (supply & fit)

- Joiner (hang doors, cills, skirting and architrave)

- Resin flooring 

- Kitchen (supply & fit)

 

We then moved in, and about a year later started

 

- Landscaping (laying patio, prepping for driveway and gates, wall building etc.)

- Resin driveway and gates were by separate specialist contractors. 

- Internal & external glass balustrade & balconies (Supply & Fit)

- Electrician still coming and going to finish driveway lights, external power etc.

 

As you can see it was mostly supply and fit (that way everything is VAT free).

 

We supplied some of the groundworks material (EPS & GRP light-wells), Velux windows, MVHR I fit), first & second fix timber, internal doors & ironmongery, bathroom fittings (Megabad), bath, sinks, tiles, wood flooring and all the landscaping materials.

 

I'm sure I've forgotten something here but you get the gist.

 

Key to my success was getting a fully insulated airtight timber frame that included felted roof, floor decks and all internal stud walls as this took away any concerns about the structural elements being in multiple hands.

 

We shared the TF design with the SE doing the basement spec - that was my main concern but both elements came together without a hitch.

 

Main frustration was trades getting delayed on other jobs and throwing out your schedule, but you just need to roll with it.

 

It also gets a bit busy near then end with plasterers, joiners, painters, tilers, plumbers and sparks all trying to get done!

 

 

 

@Bitpipe This is excellent thank you so much for taking the time to respond in this detail, helps us very much! The Home Builders Bible is now in the post! In regards to SPONs I have looked at this in the past however it seems rather expensive and wasn't sure if it would actually benefit us...

[Ferdinand]

There is good advice here.

 

My comment is that is far better to do all this in your head and on paper than once it is built wrong and needs to be sorted, or if you have spent 60% of the money on 40% of the house. But you know that.

 

My suggestion would be to self educate a bit more., then have it costed by a QS. The process itself will mean you cover everything thoroughly.

 

My general opinion is that if you are working from a professional estimate careful thought and careful buying and self-project management should save 15-20% or more, but saving that cost will possibly cost you 1000 or more hours of time. More savings are possible, but they need to be identified. If you have a contractor things can still be done, but you are working at one remove. In the case you may want to hav3 a bonus clause.

 

Two plan comments

 

1 - Including the garage in the insulated envelope is a no brainer because including it takes less cost  than excluding it afaics - compare the length of wall - and saves megapfaff with insulating the ceiling. Put heating and insulation in the floor and make it the same as all the rest of the slab. Cost saving and more flexibility.

 

2 - There was an interesting steel roof product in the Grand Designs the Street Kevin McLoud programme, which looks not dis-simiilar and could save 10s of k over zinc.

 

Wrt to architectural chats ..ultimately, who is the client?

 

F

Edited May 28, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Bitpipe]

6 minutes ago, soapstar said:

 

Hello @Mrs S. Yes I understand where you are coming from, a quick look at the price for an ASHP and you can see we could already save £1,500 compared to using a sub contractor for plumbing. We have just actually received a breakdown of costs from one builder which still doesn't go into much detail, for example they state X amount for builder, X amount for plumber and so on, without detailing the work,  slightly frustrating!

 

I would be very interested in knowing which sub contractors you are considering and if you can recommend any in the area. Our aim of using a main contractor is looking less likely by the minute! 

 

 

 

@Bitpipe This is excellent thank you so much for taking the time to respond in this detail, helps us very much! The Home Builders Bible is now in the post! In regards to SPONs I have looked at this in the past however it seems rather expensive and wasn't sure if it would actually benefit us...

 

Happy to oblige - point I'm making is that the number of trades you need to engage with at any one time  is manageable - especially if you use a single contractor for the groundworks phase and are going the timber frame package route as that gets you to a watertight / airtight shell (minus doors & windows) fairly quickly. 

 

That said, you can achieve similar with block or ICF using a single contractor.

[Bitpipe]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

There is good advice here.

 

My comment is that is far better to do all this in your head and on paper than once it is built wrong and needs to be sorted, or if you have spent 60% of the money on 40% of the house. But you know that.

 

My suggestion would be to self educate a bit more., then have it costed by a QS. The process itself will mean you cover everything thoroughly.

 

My general opinion is that if you are working from a professional estimate careful thought and careful buying and self-project management should save 15-20% or more, but saving that cost will possibly cost you 1000 or more hours of time. More savings are possible, but they need to be identified. If you have a contractor things can still be done, but you are working at one remove. In the case you may want to hav3 a bonus clause.

 

Can't agree with this enough - is exactly what we did. 

 

Before engaging a QS however I'd try and narrow the fabric options to one or two (i.e. timber frame / ICF / Block etc), then decide on your performance level (near passive, decent SAP, BR minimum). Once you have your shell, the fit out is probably the same from that point forward.

 

You're also free to send your planning drawings right now to the slew of TF firms for a budgetary quote - you'll notice that you'll get a variation in prices as some include bits others don't so good exercise in doing apples to apples comparison. If you can deal with that then you've already taken your first steps down the PM route

 

As Ferdinand says above - a QS will tell you exactly what you need and will use standard pricing to cost it up. Your task is then to bring in those items cheaper, either by cost reduction, spec reduction or elimination.

 

While I respect architects and what they offer, designing to a budget is not a skill that many of the ones I encountered seem to have.

 

We politely parted company with ours when they wanted £10k (back in 2014) to discharge planning conditions and engage building control  - did these both ourselves, drawing on experience of others here (mainly Jeremy) and using the detailed drawings & calcs from the TF firm & our basement SE as the starting point. the BCO told us what was missing and we went and found it - quite an easy process tbh.

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Bitpipe

[Mrs S]

3 hours ago, soapstar said:

 

Hello @Mrs S. Yes I understand where you are coming from, a quick look at the price for an ASHP and you can see we could already save £1,500 compared to using a sub contractor for plumbing. We have just actually received a breakdown of costs from one builder which still doesn't go into much detail, for example they state X amount for builder, X amount for plumber and so on, without detailing the work,  slightly frustrating!

 

I would be very interested in knowing which sub contractors you are considering and if you can recommend any in the area. Our aim of using a main contractor is looking less likely by the minute! 

 

 

 

@Bitpipe This is excellent thank you so much for taking the time to respond in this detail, helps us very much! The Home Builders Bible is now in the post! In regards to SPONs I have looked at this in the past however it seems rather expensive and wasn't sure if it would actually benefit us...

@soapstar, at the moment we don’t know who we’ll use for sub contracting, we’d prefer to use local tradesmen if possible

Edited May 28, 2019 by Mrs S

[Bitpipe]

3 hours ago, Mrs S said:

@soapstar, at the moment we don’t know who we’ll use for sub contracting, we’d prefer to use local tradesmen if possible

 

Many of my subbies were one or two man bands and no worse for it.

[Jeremy Harris]

One thing I learned early on was to ask anyone who you found to be good for recommendations for other trades.  The good people always seem reluctant to recommend anyone they viewed as having lower standards than themselves, so this was a pretty good way of helping to select people who did a decent job.

 

Our biggest problem by far was finding good people who were available when we needed them, and that was at a time when the building industry was a bit in the doldrums. 

[ragg987]

11 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

Many of my subbies were one or two man bands and no worse for it.

Same here. Do be careful if you "supply and fit" with small traders who are not VAT registered as any materials they supply will have VAT included, they cannot recover this and so will pass the VAT on to you. You cannot reclaim this VAT as the materials were purchased by a third party.

 

I purchased my own materials in these cases - so became a labour-only service.

[Carrerahill]

On 24/05/2019 at 22:58, Mrs S said:

Hi, we’ve just received a couple of tender costs ( out of 6 builders only 2 bid), both have come in quite a bit above our budget ie £150k above. They did mention costs had increased due to Brexit!

Everyone says this now and it is rubbish most of the time. 

 

Cement used in the UK is made in the UK from UK sourced limestone, clay and mudstone, brick, tiles and block all made in UK from this cement, place is awash with sand and stone quarry's, timber is mainly UK sourced and Scandinavian which so far has been impacted little from Brexit. Fuel costs are the main variable in construction materials, timber another bulky items being worst. Timber is actually very reasonable form source, if you live near a mill do a direct deal and it can be about 1/3 the price - once you start with the wholesalers then each stick that moves by truck gains 10-18% in cost for fuel.

 

Brexit has not actually changed any tariffs or import duties "yet". It has had an impact on certain UK manufacturing for UK supply in that people are sticking to British suppliers more so if post-Brexit things go bad then they are already using UK suppliers - different if non-UK owned business or supplies are mainly for export. I have also been told in manufacturing that UK plastic output has increased, costs have gone down and this impacts British made plastic items from light fittings to uPVC windows.

 

Someone recently nearly doubled supply costs on me and blamed Brexit, when I pointed out their entire supply chain was UK based and that I felt they were just being greedy and that I was not prepared to be lied to and ripped off they soon started to offer me ways to reduce costs. I told them they had shown their true colours and I was off elsewhere, the MD of the firm called and said he would honour the original quote (within about 5 hours of first email) - funny as I was told that the costs were now double and they could not possibly supply me for the same price... I said no thanks. 

 

Just contractors jumping on an excuse I think and I call people out on this if they try it, they often panic.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Carrerahill

[Jeremy Harris]

The blaming of Brexit for price rises reminds me of when we changed to decimal currency, when the same thing happened; many hiked their prices and blamed decimalisation. 

[Mr Punter]

Countries adopting the Euro managed similar price hikes at the time.

[Carrerahill]

36 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

One thing I learned early on was to ask anyone who you found to be good for recommendations for other trades.  The good people always seem reluctant to recommend anyone they viewed as having lower standards than themselves, so this was a pretty good way of helping to select people who did a decent job.

 

 

Yes, good call.

 

Another thing is their availability. If they are eager to get started or text/email/call to say they can start soon then that often rings alarm bells, are they not busy? Even a excuse like a cancelled job will make me wonder, did they only have 1 other job in the queue. I had a guy who kept texting me saying he had availability this week, or he could do it now and I went right off him - as much as it is a pain, the guys who are difficult to get hold of, take days to show up and then cannot start for weeks/months are usually the best.

[Bitpipe]

16 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

Yes, good call.

 

Another thing is their availability. If they are eager to get started or text/email/call to say they can start soon then that often rings alarm bells, are they not busy? Even a excuse like a cancelled job will make me wonder, did they only have 1 other job in the queue. I had a guy who kept texting me saying he had availability this week, or he could do it now and I went right off him - as much as it is a pain, the guys who are difficult to get hold of, take days to show up and then cannot start for weeks/months are usually the best.

 

I can testify to this - both my plumber and sparky were very difficult to get hold of and start on time - both did excellent jobs.

 

I found that you need to be booking popular trades about 3+ months out at a min and then keep confirming each month and then each week of the final month.

 

Make sure any materials you're on the hook for are on site a few weeks in advance in case they want to start a bit early - worst thing you can do is delay the trade yourself and then wait weeks to get them back.

 

Good idea to get your plumber and spark (and maybe joiner) onsite for a few hours ahead of first fix start so they can agree routes and who supplies what wrt heating (this is usually where they overlap).

 

Most of mine worked one after the other - it's only when you get to finishing trades that they tend to overlap - i.e. once you've plastered, tiled and done most of the decoration.

 

To be fair, all my trades were decent - only the scaffolders were a bit scary

[Triple07]

Hiya, we r  just coming to the end of our self build in Aberdeenshire (Lonmay), we did the majority of work ourselves outsourcing only the electrics (FYI 5k) bricky/harling and kitchen worktops. My husband is a joiner so would complete our work evenings and weekends. It has taken us nearly 3year, It has not been easy and took VERY careful budgeting, hampered mainly by our first house not selling, but it has given us a home we could never have afforded to buy.

 Given the nature of our hands on selfbuild i had lots of ordering and to do. Every nail, brick, slate and stick was ordered by myself and this saved us hugely financially. I reduced my work hours to 3 days to allow for this but what we lost in pay we more than made up for in PM and materials savings. A contractor isnt going to go round several companies trying to save on each item. The difference between certain suppliers was shocking.

 I’d strongly urge you to consider self-PM using individual trades, you could even use one contractor to get you to a watertight shell then subcontract from there. If ur flexible with timescale it will take some of the stress off.

Regarding the tight access, We made our timber frame kit ourselves on site which saved approx 30k. I’m sure their would be smaller joinery company’s able to do this locally and this should still offer substantial savings.

Painting is also something you could likely do yourselves (although don’t underestimate how labour intensive this is... and mind numbing) but it could easily save you £10k plus on a house your size. 

Another thing to consider whilst comparing roof prices Is although the slate is cheaper to purchase than the zinc, slating is labour intensive. 

Pay careful attention to what allowances you have been given in your tendered quotes for kitchens, bathrooms, tiles etc as often it’s too low and something most people will upspec on.

We purchased our own scaffold and sold it afterwords for same cost, likewise steel container for storage. 

Our home is approx 360m2 with integral garage. Like urs it is also slate roofed , walls are granite fieldstone and render (harked as exposed site) with areas of cedar cladding. Your plans look ambitious for your budget if going the turnkey route but manageable with some compromise if going the PM route. 

My SIL was designed a house, also to be built in Aberdeenshire that could never have been built within budget.  There is so much work available in the NE it is driving labour costs up. Another thing we need to consider up here is property price ceiling, i don’t know exactly where you are building but where we are it would be easy to spend more than market value if you get carried away. 

On another side note if you did need to scale back now but in the future go back and make alterations for disability they could be VAT free if it is a disability/chronic illness (not the bedroom tho but washrooms etc) worth looking into maybe?

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by Triple07