Employing a builder

Stavros_3

Were about to embark on having a 2 storey extension built. When it comes down to requesting builders quotes is it the norm to request a complete breakdown of their pricing i.e the figure for materials and a seperate figure for the labour charges, cheers

Cavan28

you can ask for whatever you want after all its your money your spending! However, you might not get it! When i quote for a job i give an overall price then break it down into sections, eg. Overall build £20k, then give a price for footings up to DPC £10k, price for face brick work £5k, internal stud work £2k, electrics £3k etc etc (before people start jumping on the above stating oooohh thats cheap or i wish i could get mine done for that etc they are just examples!!!!! nothing to do with how much i would charge!)Where abouts are you? THis will depend on how much you will be charged for labout or in some cases materials. HTH

tyllwyd

We had an extension built a few years ago and got three quotes - one was more than twice the other one. They all gave different amounts of information, but I don't think any separated out labour and materials - they tended to break it down more as cavan says above.

With the quote we went for, we paid in stages - so much after foundations, so much when the roof went on, so much after first fix etc. That meant that there was a few thousand pounds left to pay when the job was completed, which is obviously a good idea if you want the builder to be keen to fix all the snagging items!

And remember to allow a contingency fund for things that the builder couldn't have forseen when he originally quoted for the job - for instance, we had to pay to resurface next door's drive (the builders needed to use it for access to our job, which we hadn't appreciated when we started and it ruined her drive!)