House that needs work - Estimating costs

artbaron

Gibzy wrote: »

New Bathroom / Kitchen 5k

That sounds way too low. You'd struggle to meet this budget even if you did the work yourself. I've just had my average sized kitchen (14x8) and very small bathroom (8x6) done, using middle-of-the-range stuff for the kitchen and mostly good budget stuff for the bathroom, and it was £13K. And I'm up north so add 25%+ for London.

ognum

bluedrop wrote: »

This is seriously making me think about not buying this house....

I am self employed. I don't get paid if I don't go to work. No way I can supervise on a daily basis.

And No - I don't have friends or family in the building trade. I've spoken to a cppl of tem via ratedpeople.com

You or your partner need to supervise your build otherwise you will make a site visit and find its not what you wanted or to the standard you expect.

Builders cannot guess what you want done they need regular help in the decision making process.

lessonlearned

Please do not misunderstand me I was not suggesting that all builders are rogues and charlatans, far from it. I have some excellent tradespeople at my disposal.

However when undertaking a large project you do need to be on site at some point, not necessarily all day. I'm usually there first thing in the morning and then just pop in and out throughout the day. I make sure I can be contacted when I'm not around.

They will have questions that need answers, they will hit snags that require solutions. They will not want to proceed without your input. They will not want to be held up by waiting for you and you will not want the work to fall too far behind schedule. Lost time can become expensive.

Obviously you can use your mobile to keep in touch but I would recommend that you have a physical presence on site, even if it is just for an early morning site meeting.

If you work for yourself then surely you can be flexible with your time, ie visiting the site early in the morning and catching up with your own work in the evening.

At any rate you would normally lose money whilst you take a holiday, so my suggestion is to use some of the time you would normally allocate to your holiday to your build project.

I have not use rated people myself.

I would strongly recommend that you use tradespeople that have been personally recommended to you by someone who has had work done by them and who was happy with the work.

Double check their references, view some of their work.

You are likely to be spending tens of thousands - you really want to get it right first time.

Gibzy_2

ognum wrote: »

Please come back and tell us actual costs when you have completed, I wouldn't be surprised if your total was double this, clearly it depends on quality and how much you do!

So you are suggesting 60k on a refurb. That's crazy.:money:

We are living in South Wales not central London.:D

We will report back final costs when and as we get them.

p.S we are doing ALOT of work ourselves

lessonlearned

Gibzy wrote: »

We are currently looking to complete on our first property (3 bed terraced, victorian) next Friday.

We need to do the following

Full new heating 5k
Full Rewire 3k
Full UPVC Inc front door 3k
DPC on lower floor 2k
New Bathroom / Kitchen 5k
Straighten out some wonky floors 1k
totally decorate every room 5k
Install small WC / basin upstairs 1k
Plaster all walls and ceilings 3k

We will be looking in thew region of 25-30k to get it all sorted. Plus a further 5k to rebuild garage at some point.

Hope this helps.... all prices above are guesstimations from friends in the trade

Personally I would have thought that the kitchen/bathroom at £5k is do-able if you shop carefully and do as much of the work as you can, ie tiling etc

Replastering - if you are a keen diyer (sounds like you are) have you considered doing a basic plastering course. Takes a week and costs around £600.

Obviously you won't be able to work as quickly as a professional.

Damp course - if you strip the old plaster yourself you can save a lot of money. Not the most pleasant of jobs but a big saving.

Redecoration - £5K sounds high or does this include flooring/carpets. Noticed no mention of this.

Windows/door sounds a bit low, a decent door can come in at £1K. Are you including fascias, soffits and guttering.

Good luck, have fun.;)

Gibzy_2

lessonlearned wrote: »

Personally I would have thought that the kitchen/bathroom at £5k is do-able if you shop carefully and do as much of the work as you can, ie tiling etc

Replastering - if you are a keen diyer (sounds like you are) have you considered doing a basic plastering course. Takes a week and costs around £600.

Obviously you won't be able to work as quickly as a professional.

Damp course - if you strip the old plaster yourself you can save a lot of money. Not the most pleasant of jobs but a big saving.

Redecoration - £5K sounds high or does this include flooring/carpets. Noticed no mention of this.

Windows/door sounds a bit low, a decent door can come in at £1K. Are you including fascias, soffits and guttering.

Good luck, have fun.;)

hi Thanks for the pointers.

Kitchen / bathroom - The kitchen is a moving in present from the MIL and FIL so there is a pretty open book on that at the moment. We have to fit the bathroom and white goods (thats where the 5k came from)

Re-plastering - we have had a quote off a plasterer friend of 2.5k-3k for all walls and ceilings (he will also be onsite offering free help and advise on fitting plasterboards / dot and dab etc)

Damp course - am already going to be stripping all the old plaster off ready for the works to be completed.

Redecoration - This would include all flooring. Where there are good floorboards to be found we will be sanding these back and making good of them.

Windows & doors - had a quote for a front door fitted (gloss black victorian style) of £600 and based on each window costing £200 and £200 to fit we would be looking at a total of £3,400 (£2,800 for windows and £600 for a door)

Hope this helps some people.

Looby_Lou

Check how high your windowsills are, if they are low (I think below 800mm above floor level) then you need toughened safety glass which will put the cost up a lot!

trailingspouse

This sounds very similar to the work we need on the house we're in the process of buying. I would just add to all the excellent advice you've been given so far - you don't need to do it all at one go.

Our plan is to complete the purchase, but continue to rent for a couple of weeks before we actually move in. During this time we will have all the carpets etc taken up, and get the floors sanded. But nothing more. Once we've moved in, we'll do nothing for a while (you need to live in a house for a while before you can really make decisions about major changes like new kitchens/bathrooms). This gives us chance to recover financially from the move before we go on to the next major phase. Our plan is basically to cost out each room, then save for it, then do it, starting with the one that we can live with least.
Even if you work full-time, there are still evenings and weekends (really) - you can paint a couple of walls in an evening, tile a bathroom in a weekend. It's all possible if you want to do it.

Gibzy_2

Looby_Lou wrote: »

Check how high your windowsills are, if they are low (I think below 800mm above floor level) then you need toughened safety glass which will put the cost up a lot!

Thats a good point. I will check this ASAP. Although i think i will opt for safety glass anyway because of young children in the family.

craig-diy

if you need a cheap kitchen have a look at benchmarx joinery they deliver quick and are part of travis perkins (same as wickes) but you may need to search if they have a showroom close to you, but you can always have a look at wickes kitchens (as the range is the same), ask your builder to get you trade price.