Free Building Materials

v.rajput

Hi,?

Has anyone ever watched "tommy walsh fix you house fro free".

I wondering whether any mse's have ever approach a building site or new development site and spoke to the man in charge and said " excuse me, i would love to take some of that stuff there, save you throwing it away"

Has anyone done this?

The reason i ask is im had a qoute on a part garage conversion 3 stud walls a floor and ceiling(im sure the builder thought i said extension).

I have now collared a mate to do the stud work, and am trying to get the cost down on the timber and plasterboard.

where do you start?

iamcornholio

If Tommy Walsh's advice and skill was as good as his gob, then we could all build for nothing and the world would be saved. Hallalujah

In fact, "in the trade" he is what is commonly known as a gobsh**e

Obviously, when a cockney barrow boy comes up to your building site giving it some spiel with a TV crew "cord blimey, don't cha know" , then you just may have some brand new bricks and timber, kitchen units and bathroom suites available, which of course you would otherwise be throwing away

For your stud wall, if £2 for some 2.4m CLS, and £4 for a sheet of p/board is too much, then I suppose you could get some old bent 3x2 and some damp half boards with no corners from a local skip

andrew-b

It's the same with Cowboy Builder's with Melinda Messenger. Every week Melinda blags a free kitchen or bathroom or something that their budget won't extend to. How do they do it? Well they agree to advertise them on the programs website of "suppliers for episode x" or in the program credits etc..so the company giving out the freebies gets some good publicity..leading to extra custom to cut their losses!
I think the nearest thing you can get is agreeing to allow companies to use you as a showcase of their product.

iamcornholio ..when did you last buy wood that cheap and where?!!

v.rajput

Ta, i thought as much,

v.rajput

it does make it look easy though!!

andrew-b

They always do make it look easy on TV though! Really they've probably spent days with researchers on the phone trying to blag freebies! I blame Anneka Rice and Challenge Anneka!
Sorry iamcornholio..i take it back after an internet search i see you can get wood nearly that cheap...pays to shop around i guess!

v.rajput

Hello again,

A couple of quid on a length of wood and i sheet of plaster is ok, 2 walls approx 3m by 3m 2 walls at 4 by 3, the celing, the floor, the insulation, blah, blah, blah.

it all adds up, and when i win the euromillons next week, ill have to knock it all down again to build an extension lol.

iamcornholio

andrew-b wrote: »

iamcornholio ..when did you last buy wood that cheap and where?!!

63mm CLS is about £2.20 in B&Q, but £1.80 (+ VAT) at a trade place around the corner in Birmingham. These two merchants and the other local ones will all generally price match each other if you ask, or meet half way with the price.

Same for the p/board- works out about £4.

Obviously, then more you buy the more chance of a discount

andrew-b

Funnily enough i actually bought some CLS in Homebase of all places the other weekend so i should have known better - probably related to not having had my dinner yet!

dander

not to mention that the "salvage expert" fellow on there has a warehouse full of reclaimed stuff to draw on, which isn't really the same as a man on the street going out to find something from scratch.

Although, I should confess that I have a big development going up round me and I got some ridiculously cheap furniture from them which they had surplus to requirements when fitting out the show homes and they just wanted someone to get it out from under their feet - so if you've got the courage to ask, then it might be worth a try. Although, I would have thought with building materials, you've got to time it absolutely right, because things will only be spare when they've finished absolutely everything off.

ormus

one of those TV comapnies called my mate and tried to blag a sideboard for a project (350 quid cost).
said he would get a credit on the end of the prog.
he told em to fck off.