Home reburishment and a full time job -Doable?

bluedrop

Hi all,
The house we are buying needs full refurbishment. My husband and I work full time and its near impossible to take time off work for long periods. I will be able to take a day or two off when required...

we plan to work 2 days from home each - so that covers 4 work days and leaves one day for the tradesmen to work by themselves.

Does this sound like a realisitic plan? I am keen on hiring tradesmen so that I can save some money rather than hiring a builder (builder's margin plus vat will make my bill significantly higher)....

Anyone on the forum done this before along with a full time job? Any relevant advice gratefully taken.

bluedrop

Oops sorry! Can the moderator please move this to "my home- DIY" section?

Generali

bluedrop wrote: »

Hi all,
The house we are buying needs full refurbishment. My husband and I work full time and its near impossible to take time off work for long periods. I will be able to take a day or two off when required...

we plan to work 2 days from home each - so that covers 4 work days and leaves one day for the tradesmen to work by themselves.

Does this sound like a realisitic plan? I am keen on hiring tradesmen so that I can save some money rather than hiring a builder (builder's margin plus vat will make my bill significantly higher)....

Anyone on the forum done this before along with a full time job? Any relevant advice gratefully taken.

Yup, it sounds doable to me.

Will you manage to maintain the required level of output at work while supervising?

bluedrop

Generali wrote: »

Yup, it sounds doable to me.

Will you manage to maintain the required level of output at work while supervising?

Tbh, I lack clarity about what supervision involves.... Just exist in the background and do my work - give inputs when asked .... It doesn't seem to consume much time to disrupt my office work...

Am I missing something?

Generali

bluedrop wrote: »

Tbh, I lack clarity about what supervision involves.... Just exist in the background and do my work - give inputs when asked .... It doesn't seem to consume much time to disrupt my office work...

Am I missing something?

If you've got good workers then it's fine. If you've got bodgers then it can pay to watch them because they're less inclined to cut corners that way.

PaulF81

We did it. Although the majority of the work was done during block leave, usually 3 weeks over summer.

ruggedtoast

If you're just paying other people to do it for you you should be ok. In my experience if you're planning to do much yourself and you're having to work full time as well expect slow progress.

Some friends of mine bought a wreck a couple of years ago and its still taking its toll on them.

PaulF81

When you say refurb, what do you mean btw? Rewire/ replumb? Some people's ideas of refurb are different to others.

My advice? Plan how you will live in the mess and keep at least 1 room per floor habitable. You need to budget at least 25% over initial costings in my experience for unforeseen stuff. Have a look at the changes to part p as you can get away with doing much of the wiring yourself after 1 April this year, they changed the notification requirements for special locations. Only attempt though if you are technically competent and willing to spend serious time with the latest wiring regulations (currently 17th edition as amended). We did our own, as its a 6 bed detached I reckon we saved at least 3k in labour and materials costs.

SteveV2

I done my weekends and evenings. It did take 2 years.. but doable. Being a builder myself I did most of the work. It was a full refurb and big extension.

You won't want to do it again though.

LEJC

Just remember that renovation work can sometimes be noisy this can sometimes have an effect on the clarity of your output when working...
noise travels well when you're on the phone so as long as you dont mind explaining tp people that "you've building work" going on then thats fine...

The other thing that I encountered was the trades people who bought their I pod docking stations with them and plugged them in whilst they worked...some used headphones which was great ...but every now and again singing along to something out of tune would prompt an exchange to remind them that I was working too!

olly300

I seriously wouldn't work from home with tradesmen in.