Who to speak to first?

Wobblydeb

I am in the process of buying a semi-detached house to renovate and remodel. I would like to do a kitchen/diner knock through (possibly a load bearing wall) and if funds allow, add on a small sunroom off the dining room.

None of this will impact on the party wall, and I will stick within permitted development rights, hence no planning permission required. Total budget £40-£50k, and ideally I would like one person/company to project manage it. (We will not be living there at the time and have full time jobs).

I don't know whether to start by finding an architect, structural engineer or building company!! Architect feels slightly like overkill for a bog standard knock through and extension. I appreciate that I will need a structural engineer at some point, but don't know if they would be good as my single point of contact.

What do you think?

Kiran

You need to find someone who can identify a load bearing wall. It doesn't need to be a structural engineer. A decent builder can do this for you. If it's not load bearing then you can proceed.

Once you know this you will be able to get a better idea of budgets and who needs to be involved

LEJC

We are now on the tail end of a remodelling renovation....so you may find our experience useful when deciding what to do.

We needed rewiring,central heating,windows doors gutterings,new kitchen,bathroom moving from down to upstairs,utility room and downstairs toilet creating from old bathroom,and repairs to roofing on conservatory and utility room....

Our budget initially was set at £30k

we contacted a couple of "maintainance" type contractors who offer property renovation quotes and discovered that whilst they are happy to project manage the renovations it does come at a price....

We then approached a more local builder/heating engineer who was willing to take on the work in not so much a project manager way but a "lead" way which for us worked well,we were able to use our own choice of electricians,window company,plasterer and roofer to fit around the builder who did the kitchen utility and bathroom,contracting in any of his own contacts to assist.

We did raise our total budget for finished work to £40k and had to undertake all of the redecorating ourselves in order to stay within our figures.

The advantage of going to an all in company is clearly that you will get the job finished at an agreed time without over running.The cost is something to consider,as we found that they were possibly upto 25% more expensive for the whole job rather than breaking it down into the individual trades.
I'm not sure how much input you get with fixtures and fittings on an all in job and you would need to clarify that if you decide on that route,I did end up changing the specifications of some things at quite short notice,which I probably would not have been able to do as easily if it was under the management of someone else!!!

Our job has over run by a good few months but actually I dont regret the more hands on approach we have had with the renovations...and our budget when everything is finally finished to move in standard will only be minimally over...

Good luck with your renovation...its been a learning curve for us,and now we are nearing the end surprisingly we are looking ahead to possibly another...

JimmyTheWig

Wobblydeb wrote: »

I don't know whether to start by finding an architect, structural engineer or building company!! Architect feels slightly like overkill for a bog standard knock through and extension. I appreciate that I will need a structural engineer at some point, but don't know if they would be good as my single point of contact.

I'm not convinced that you'll need an architect at all.
I would have thought that you would need an engineer to do the calculations for supporting the load-bearing wall, but that would be a secondary task.
So I'd say speak to building companies first.

[I'm far from an expert, though, so don't do this just on my suggestion!]

Wobblydeb

Thanks LEJC for such a detailed response. That's sounds a similar type of job to what we're looking at - we'll be getting people in to do windows, re-wiring etc. etc. We will be doing the clearing before work starts ourselves, and the decorating at the end!

It is interesting that you ended up dealing with many of the trades direct. Did you have much prior knowledge to help you do this? From a financial and control perspective I would like to do this, but I would have a massive learning curve, just to figure out what needed to be done and when. I just know that I would end up doing research and stuff whilst at work, and don't want to be unprofessional!

LEJC

We had no knowledge of building/rewiring etc....its fair to say possibly the only project managing experience I have would be managing our home life,getting the kids to school etc,but managing trades people and speaking to them,no expeience whatsoever!!!

We did get lots of quotes and listened to every piece of advice anyone cared to offer,some of it was good and some conflicted with our opinions so we sometimes needed to be objective.

Most of the trades people we ended up using were small or independant rather than from large companies,we found that the the larger the company,the larger the price,and a lot of the time tried to explain in detail what we wanted and hopfully we tuned into people who understood our needs and wants.

we also found that once we got someone round for a quote they usually recommended someone else to try for other areas so that really helped too

We were lucky to get a builder who understood us,and as such he was happy at times to take the lead and tell us how far in advance to organise the next set of tradesmen etc

for each job we got quotes,not always taking the cheapest,going more on making sure we had the job done that we wanted rather than the one someone wanted to provide...an example being the central heatingwhich I know was not the cheapest,but it certainly does exactly what I want of it and we have managed to have most of the pipework concealed....we could easliy have reduced costs by £1000 if we were happy to have exposed pipes.its also fair to say that we tried where possible to get quotes to complete the job rather than on daily rates,so as to ensure people were not there longer than needed...a couple of times we needed daily rate plasterers and they seemed to be more expensive than the one we used for the main job.

If you are having a full rwire then remember to factor in the plastering costs too,its unlikely that the cost of rewiring quoted by the electrician will automatically include this,you may find its just areas that need patching in or skimming,or you may find its just as easy to go the whole hog and get it all skimmed,a lot will depend on the quality of you walls and how you eventually plan to decorate them.



We started with windows as for us that was the thing that needed securing first and in a way it was a stand alone job,then electrics closely followed by the heating as that was always going to be the most disruptive 2 jobs....after that we kind of slotted round the builder for a while.plasterers came in once everything had been chased and it took 9 days to plaster every surface.

There were hicups along the way but I think that happens even if you have a professional project manager,and whilst at the time sometimes it was hard I still think the savings to us were worth it.

It would be lovely to now get someone in to paint the whole house but realistically its a job we can physically do ourselves so instead of £1500 plus for decoration its cost us only a few hundred for the paint etc....
I guess the thing to do is to make a plan that lists the things you cant do,the things you can do and the things that if budget allows you will try not to do.Give every thing a realistic price and from there you will be able to work out some costs and time frames.

I guess if we had had another £5-10k to throw at the project it would be finished now...thats not the case and we probably wont be fully done and ready until january,mainly because we only get weekends to do it,so from start to finish it will have been 7 months.Im sure a property maintanance company would have turned it round much quicker but realistically the refurb would have cost at least £60k

Dont underestimate the redecoration at the end we have just opted for magnolia and white but it is every surface in the house that now needs painting,from the ceilings to the skirting boards and everything inbetween...

Wobblydeb

Did you live in the house whilst doing the work, LEJC?

How did you find the planning aspect? Are there any online guides to what happens when that you would recommend?

LEJC

No...didnt live in the house,so we have been able to walk away from it when it all became too dusty...we didnt need any planning permission as we were not substantially altering the structure,although for council tax purposes were were inspected and assessed as having an exemption from payment as the house was uninhabitable initally with no heating,running water,kitchen or toilet facilities.