Builder is asking us for more money?

Anihilator

So 2.5 days work for yours equates to £400 a day. This isnt including materials. Say 2 workers and that is £200 each or about £30 an hour

Not particularly excessive imo for a skilled tradesman who brings their expertise and tools etc. Not to mention I didnt include materials.

If people want cheap jobs they should do it themselves.

Tozer

Anihilator wrote: »

So 2.5 days work for yours equates to £400 a day. This isnt including materials. Say 2 workers and that is £200 each or about £30 an hour

Not particularly excessive imo for a skilled tradesman who brings their expertise and tools etc. Not to mention I didnt include materials.

If people want cheap jobs they should do it themselves.

The bit you have forgotten to mention is that this all totally depends upon the contract and what is stated.

Suspect it may well be JCT MW form of contract which, from memory, allows for additional costs to be claimed.

Lifeisbutadream

choccywoccy wrote: »

I dont think it was unforseen or hidden problems - I expected this when renovating our 500 yr old farmhouse a few years back...but this we are talking about a 9 yr old new built garage convertion! he didnt take measurments before the quote he went off "spec" and said the original builders got away with the "wrong spec"....this is why the floor is a few inches higher than it should have been....I thought he should have checked and measured up before the quote? therefore the fault lies with him for missing this?

With large jobs you need to go off spec - it would take hours to go and measure up everything and check that the spec was correct. If you have had plans drawn up, then maybe you could go back to the person who did the plans and calculations and ask them why they did the plans wrong.

I agree with the person who said that if you are not happy, then ask for invoice for works done and get someone else. I dont think that you can expect him to do £1000 of work for free.

Lifeisbutadream

Foggster wrote: »

We have just had a garage conversion. The floor was always going to be dug up because it was on a slight slope (I understand alot of garage floors are like this) and we had the floor insulated which brought the level up to meet the floor in the hallway.

The first builder asked if he could make an exploratory hole in the wall to check the levels and the 3 other builders all checked using this. There was no need to rip floors up to check this.

£1000 seems an awful lot of money. As far as I could remember, they took half a day to break up the concrete and then laid the insulation and concrete over the next day or two, its not like it involves costly materials.

Both concrete and insullation are expensive materials. I agree that £1000 is quite a lot, but I would get another quote to upgrade the floor and compare it.

Lifeisbutadream

I have asked OH and he said £1000 is about right.

He also said that you may be able to upgrade the floor with boarding rather than concrete and that should lower the price by around half. May be worth asking your builder if he can do that?

Widelats

Tozer wrote: »

Not how it works at all.

Most building contracts contain provision for change control (i.e. pricing increases) if there are latent problems. The pricing would have been done on the assumption that the existing work was to the spec.

Building isn't an exact science so to an extent it is understandable.

Your one of these people who think everything is legit and above board in the building game then .....

Tozer

Widelats wrote: »

Your one of these people who think everything is legit and above board in the building game then .....

You assume totally wrong.

Just know a bit about construction contracts.

Widelats

Tozer wrote: »

You assume totally wrong.

Just know a bit about construction contracts.

You know nothing of what i used to do though, but you said this is not the way at all, which you are wrong about.

Tozer

Widelats wrote: »

You know nothing of what i used to do though, but you said this is not the way at all, which you are wrong about.

In relation to your comment:

Read your contract carefully, you should not have to pay extra if you agreed to a certain price, as it is the builders fault for not mentioning this extra work to you in the first place.

Perhaps you shouldn't assume everyone is dishonest just because you used to cheat.:p

Widelats

Tozer wrote: »

In relation to your comment:

Read your contract carefully, you should not have to pay extra if you agreed to a certain price, as it is the builders fault for not mentioning this extra work to you in the first place.

Perhaps you shouldn't assume everyone is dishonest just because you used to cheat.:p

In relation to the story by the OP, my comments are spot on