House Renovation: How much does it cost?

contactanant

I am planning to buy a 3 bed terraced house in greater London, which needs complete refurbishment and looking for cost for renovation including all labour and material cost.

It needs following work at the minimum:
Kitchen Ceiling, Tiling and Flooring 8.5 x 8.5 sq feet
Bathroom Ceiling, Tiling and Flooring 6.5 x 6.5 sq feet
New Kitchen
New Bathroom
Removal of wall between wc and bath
Wooden flooring in the living room 26x12 50 per sq meter
Carpet upstairs 500 sq feet 15 per sq meter carpet
Decorating throughout 1000 sq feet
A small pitched roof on the entrance porch 3x4 feet
Removal of driveway wall to open up driveway
Fitted Wardrobes in two bedrooms 14 x 11 rooms
4 new radiators, boiler is fine
Hiding of the gas/plumbing pipes in kitchen, bathroom and living room.

Can someone guide to approximate cost given all the materials are average priced e.g. 4000 gbp kitchen for 8 units, bathroom suit for 3000 gbp?

Leif

How long is a piece of string?

Majjies web site gives comparisons of basic kitchen furniture costs.

http://www.advancedkd.co.uk/

Not sure where the page is! Kitchen £5K upwards. I paid £11.5K including Bosch appliances, quartz worktop and oak doors, similar size to yours. I also paid to have it rewired, and replastered, plus removal of an old boiler, and some holes blocked. Bathroom, I've seen about £4K upwards, including furniture, similar size to yours. Plasterers are £150+ per day, get a builder to do it, he'll charge up to double that. Carpet, locally its ~£12 per square meter for plastic, and £30 per square meter for wool, free fitting, underlay is £7-10 per square meter. Decorating? I did mine myself, similar size, cost about £1,000 in paint although I used expensive paint (Zinsser Gardz, Dulux Endurance, Sikkens Satura oil based). It took me about 1hour to paint a door, and 1 hour to paint a ceiling, 1 coat, more needed, pros do it faster. Personally I do not trust pros to paint, some are good, many aren't. I had all my radiator pipes chased into the screed floors, cost ~£1K. You can also have them chased into walls, no idea which is better. I had plastic in cement. There is also pipe in pipe, and pipe in channel. Fitted wardrobes are outrageously expensive. Go to B&Q and you will see what I mean. A colleague was quoted about £5K for one bedroom. I have one in the small bedroom. A chippy must have nailed some planks to the walls, and screwed one to the ceiling. These acted as the frame. He then fixed the 4 doors to the frame. I'd get a local joiner (recommended ones only) to quote.

Extra costs you did not mention: window boards, the old ones are probably naff, windows, doors, the old ones are probably naff unless made from solid wood, walls, if they are papered allow for them being awful underneath, tap them and if they sound hollow, the plaster has blown. Wiring? Fuse box? Floors? Are there vinyl floor tiles that need removing? Skirting board and architraves, how bad are they?

fluffymuffy

I did a through renovation of a detached bungalow about four years ago. Took off the roof and the gables, and all the plaster. Then did a room in the roof (this needed special trusses, hence a new start) and added a couple of extensions and a big conservatory. Cavity wall insulation, new windows, new wiring, combi-boiler system, and posh kitchen. Total cost £110K

What I didn't do was replace the timber ground floor. Which turned out to be a mistake as a couple of years later I was back there (as I am an architect) to see why the floor was collapsing. Dry rot under the living room floor. Remedy was to put the lot in a skip and fill the floor in with expanded clay beads (4ft cavity) and pour a new slab on top. That cost £500.

contactanant

Thanks for replying to my question, your responses are very helpful. I don't think wiring is a problem, all the lights and plugs in working order. Fuse box is old and I will get it changed to MCB. windows are double glazed and in good state.

What I am trying to find is that can I do complete renovation of a 3 bed terraced house in under 25K. with just one structural change of removing wall between wc and bath?

phill99

contactanant wrote: »

Thanks for replying to my question, your responses are very helpful. I don't think wiring is a problem, all the lights and plugs in working order.

But you don't know that. When getting your fuse box changed, the electrician will have to test the earth. Older lighting circuits were not earthed so will need earthing. Additionally the water and gas supplies will have to be earth bonded.

Your £25k maybe on the low side given the work you want to do. I would suggest another £10k is more realistic.

LEJC

We are midway through a house renovation...probably at the point where most of the major work is done so whats left we need to complete ourselves rather than getting someone in...

We needed a full rewire
central heating installation
new windows and front door and back door
Gutters and facias front and back
new kitchen
relocation of bathroom from downstairs to up
creation of dowstairs loo in previous bathroom and divide into a utility room
new flat roof on utility
new conservatory roof
skimming of all walls and ceilings
blocking up a couple of unused doorways

most of our rooms have had an element of boxing in of pipework...and again whilst the materials are fairly cheap its the time it takes that you may find you are paying for....


We budgeted £40k for all work and its surprising just how much money you can end up spending...and a large part of the money goes on unseen things or things that once you start poking around you find actually they need replacing too

We obviously also need to decorate and carpet the whole house and actually again its surprising the amount of paint that we are getting through
We are getting close to the budget going over due in part mostly to underestimating the cost of new internal doors which because of their odd size cannot just be modified from off the peg ones....and our major faux pas has been the fact that we didnt anticipate the existing conservatory to need as much work doing on it as it does...that element has really stretched the budget

Its difficult to say one way or the other if you can do a complete renovation of you property for 25k...if you intend to do lots of the work yourself then yes its probably possible but it also depends on how much you actually renovate...there are a couple of rooms in our house that we hav not done much to with the exception of a radiator,new window and replaster the wall...but then the kitchen and downstairs loo/utilty project has cost close to £9000...
We have used trades men but hopefully haggled good prices but there is a lot that we also hope to and need to do ourselves in order to bring the renovation in as close to budget as we can

Dont forget to add in the cost of removal of rubbish...skip hire will possibly st you back a few hundred pounds...and its all the little things that if you dont include them in the initial budgeting its what makes all the difference...the cheapest large skips we found in our area was £185 and if its not gouing to be on private land you may need to factor in extra to cover the permit costs

My advice to you would be to realistically calculate the costs and have a contingency fund of up to half again to deal with the other things as they crop up...as others have said there is no fixed price for a renovation project...its just a case of trying to allow yourself as much leeway as possibkle and to be realistic about the initial costs you assign to things

I hope your project goes well...its certainly been a learning curve for me!

southcoastrgi

contactanant wrote: »

What I am trying to find is that can I do complete renovation of a 3 bed terraced house in under 25K. with just one structural change of removing wall between wc and bath?

me thinks you have been watching too many day time tv shows, this would only work if you did the majority of the work yourself & unfortunatly as you have had to ask the question about cost i don't think that will happen, plus you have bought a house in the smoke so your prices for labour are going to be alot higher.

LEJC

On your original query and post you said you want to remove the existing wall to open up the driveway.....is this because you intend to park a car there...if so is there any associated pavement which would require lowering....I seem to remember when we make an enquiry to the local council about the possibility of doing this a few years back there was a charge of several thousand pounds to lower the kerb......I've no idea if this is still the case but you might want to investigate....or perhaps someone else here could clarify the point?

keystone

Leif wrote: »

Personally I do not trust pros to paint, some are good, many aren't.

P&D work is highly undervalued. Too many peole think they can paint when they can't but tarring all P&Ds with the same brush is a little naughty . A door takes max 15 minutes per side for gloss, less for primer and undercoat.

Cheers

keystone

contactanant wrote: »

Thanks for replying to my question, your responses are very helpful. I don't think wiring is a problem, all the lights and plugs in working order. Fuse box is old and I will get it changed to MCB. windows are double glazed and in good state.

What I am trying to find is that can I do complete renovation of a 3 bed terraced house in under 25K. with just one structural change of removing wall between wc and bath?

I say no you can't if you are employing others to do the work. If you do it all yourself then probably £ 12 - 15k. If this is a complete refurbishment the you will have to comply with Part M of BRs. One affect of this is as regards heights of sockets and light switches irrespective of whether your wiring is currently satisfactory or not.

Cheers

tlh858

contactanant wrote: »

I don't think wiring is a problem, all the lights and plugs in working order. Fuse box is old and I will get it changed to MCB.

Refurbishing a house and not rewiring is total madness.

It's highly likely there won't be enough sockets in the rooms, or they will be in the wrong places. Homes today have vast amounts of electrical items, most of which simply didn't exist 20-30 years ago.

Even if there are enough, if any fault occurs, or you want extra sockets / lights / whatever adding later, all those expensive wooden floors and other decorative items will have to be destroyed to get the new wiring in.

For kerbs, yes they do have to be lowered before you can drive over them. The pavement will also be strengthened to avoid it being damaged when you drive over it.
If you knock down the wall and start driving over the existing pavement, it's very likely that the pavement and any services buried under it will be damaged, and you will end up paying for them to be repaired.