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Requesting builders quotes for extension

2 years ago

What's the best way now we have our plans in with the council to go about getting quotes for the work to be done and how best to work out our budget? And the how to pick a builder...

We're moving our kitchen from the 1st floor to the ground floor, converting existing kitchen/diner into bedroom/bathroom, adding a 3.5m extension and converting the existing garage into utility, loo and study...

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Comments (4)

PRO
My Claybrick Home
2 years ago
I am happy to recommend a builder for you to contact but it would be great to know your location 1st.

My advice is meet with at least 3 to get quotes, get to know the builder, look at examples of his/her work, ask for a reference call - or even visit one of their projects. Do your due diligence !

If you get a tingly bad feeling listen to your gut,

Be sure to get a full itemised quote and ask what hidden costs could there be.

Add at least 20% on for contingency.

Ask for a timeline of what decisions you will need to make by when.

I completed a full home renovation project in 2019 and the number of decisions you need to make can be very overwhelming - so have support or get ahead.

Find a local Interior Designer to work with.

Hope these tips help.

Good luck
Chris+Kate S
Original Author
2 years ago
Thanks for this... it's just hard to know how to approach it and how to pick ones to invite!

Wanting to pre-think as much as we can and not rush it so we can go into it as ready as we can be having not done any work like this before.

Location is Surbiton, Surrey...
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Hi Gus, we are mid side return build currently and had exactly your dilemma last year when we were talking about the work we wanted to do. Ultimately we figured it came down to whether we were willing to pay to avoid the project management & associated stress! So we had a number of ‘design & build’ companies come to visit, talk over and quote for the work, in addition to working out costs of managing the various components separately. After breaking down all the moving parts (architect, structural engineer, party wall surveyor, planning application, builder, plumber, electrician, plasterer, tiler, building control, drainage, tree survey - off the top of my head!) we opted to go with a D&B (project management) company to carry out & coordinate everything for us. Our reasoning included: they have experience, can anticipate things we probably wouldn’t even consider or know about, have access to all the trades, can put a team together which suited our timeline, can coordinate all the trades (and know when to!) at the relevant times, they do it full time (rather than us working at the same time), etc... So in short, it boils down to whether you want to pay for someone to take care of things for you! After we did a number of the elements for our wedding and wishing after the fact we’d just paid to not have to deal with it - we took that on board for this somewhat larger project and went with a D&B company. So far so good.... fingers crossed it remains this way!
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Hi irina, total ground floor extension size is 30m2. Total 1st floor extension being added on is 7m2 (so 23m2 of the ground floor needs to be roofed) The loft area takes up the same area as the whole of the first floor which is 53m2 (including widths of external walls). So completely new roof at a higher pitch for this, it is gable roof but then with a large dormer to it. I should point out there is already a small extension on the house which is being knocked down for the works - this is ~5m2 in total but this means that of the 30m2 of the ground floor extension, 5m2 already has foundations. When I was working it out based on £1500 per square metre for the ground floor extension, plus £750 per square metre for 1st floor (which seems pretty standard from what I’ve read), this means the ground/first floor should be roughly ~£50k, which means the expensive builders are charging £78k for the roof lift loft which seems excessive. Especially as the quote with the most expensive roof is at coming in at £30k just for the roof, which means it’s either costing 48k simply to board out/plumb/plaster/insulate/electric the loft or the extension elsewhere is costing a lot more than £1500 per square metre!
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S B
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
Having just been through the process, we started to search for builders for our (slightly more complex though) extension in August and only managed to get one quote having contacted 20, about 6 having looked at the house. My point is, contact more than you would normally because they are SO busy at the moment and labour/materials is highly sought. Good luck
PRO
Eerospace Ltd
2 years ago
Hello,,, we take on lots of extensions and here are the details of one of my best contractors.... Behrang at KCBuilt --- 07795016773..,usually he is well priced.....Davied.

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