I wanted to ask how they calculate building work costs…
probably by seeing how much they could get out of you by walking around your property beforehand to negiotate a price… you know as theyre looking for where the pipes run through the house or as u offer them a cup of tea in your front room…
but im sure there is a proper way!
Lots of “proper ways”.
You can measure up the quantities of materials and labour time and refer to market price books or the RICS (Chartered Surveyors) current price guides then add OHP (overheads and profit).
You can work on past experience/costs from similar jobs.
You can work on price per square metre. (Again, refer to current price guides.)
Or, and the most popular amongst small builders, is to have a good guess. If, when you’ve got stuck in you can’t find some extras, you’re not trying. (A bit like garages.)
For small works, it’s mainly about how elastic is the clients budget. (Abit like garages.)
Cynical? What, after 40+ years in the industry?
Assuming fully fitted out, to a sort of average standard, somewhere between £2,000 and £2,500 per square metre depending on lots of variables. (Known in the trade as “buggeration factors”.)
My area is around 50 sq mt according to you it will be hell of alot…
That’s a decent size domestic job, so presumably some biggish open spaces with not much going on in them. And I hope for your sake, no difficult,expensive materials.
If there is easy access for small plant and bulk materials, that might get down to £1,500 -£1,600 / sq. mtr., perhaps a bit more if there’s “buggeration factors”.
Put it this way. If you haven’t got £75K, or don’t know a decent bunch of Baltic builders, forget it.
The building industry is a hard working, hard nosed competetive business. Grossly inefficient, wasteful and, in many ways, complete shite, but no one ever accused it of being a charity.
I’m still working on £2,000 / sq. mtr. for small (300 sq. mtr.ish) new build jobs for budget pricing.