Average fee for a project manager?

LEJC

Our trades people were in for 5 months....after that the finishing off was up to us...and we worked only weekends on it after the building team left

Rickb

LEJC wrote: »

OP...can I also ask you what the project managing will entail...we found that trades men were more than capable of working without supervision and therefore didnt need a foreman on site all the time.

Sorry if i seem a little questioning...but it strikes me that this guy you have is possibly seeing an opportunity to get some extra money out of you for what essentially is nothing more than working alonside a bunch of guys he already deals with!

Thats kind of what I'm thinking too. They are all recommended by him and I've met a couple of them and they do seem sound guys.

From my mind, it will be the assistance in sourcing the tradesmen, hopefully source of cheap places to get materials and then directing them to work in the right order (since the whole house will be getting worked on).

He knows we are on a tight budget so it will be a case of if it's too much then the work won't take place either until we secure more funds or he gets the price down.

Furts

I_have_spoken wrote: »

£125 to £175 per day

I would put a caveat to this. If the project manager is a working tradesman you might get one at the upper end of this. If the individual is Chartered Institute of Building, Institute of Clerks of works then you would not. Basically the latter would be a more technical/ quality stance.

Be careful of the tradesman being a project manager. If his trade is on the critical path of your programme all time project managing will delay your completion.

Think very carefully about exactly what you define as a project manager. It is a very loose term, covering many scenarios.

For example, I project managed my home. This included surveying the plot and boundaries, drawing up for Planning then for Building Regs, producing a detailed specification for all works, dealing with the local authority, doing structural calculations, opening accounts at builders merchants, obtaining materials prices, obtaining labour only prices, obtaining supply and fit prices,scheduling and ordering all materials, keeping accounts, VAT analysis, quality control, loading out, sweeping up etc.

I also cleared the plot, did the demolition, did the site engineering, was one of the groundworkers and then backed off once I had prepared all the oversites. The brickies then took over - but were labour only. Hence, I had to keep ahead with preparation and materials supply and coordinating floor joists, roof trusses, cranes etc.

I say all this not to bore you to sleep but to make a point! Who is to say what a Project Managers role actually encompasses? Hence, how can an accurate figure be put against it - unless it is rigidly defined?

When I analysed my time it was a financial reality check. Had I paid someone to do the work it would have cost a five figure sum just for the labour time.

Then there were the savings and commitment only someone working for their own finances would aim for - a project manager would not do this.

It was hard work, but it brought down my building cost by at least £100000.

LEJC

Hopefully having read furts post you know in your mind whether your project is basically a refurbishment of a tired house to bring it up to your specification or something which is on a completely different scale!

....and from that you should be able to ascertain whether the term used by this guy as "project management" is project management in the true sense or more along the lines of cordination of tradesmen with the inclusion of hiring a few skips or being there to answer any questions raised by building control etc.

Dont be pressurised into "project management" its not rocket science when you are dealing with a reasonably straight forward renovation.

Ask this guy for a breakdown of what the project management will entail and if its a monetry figure that your happy with then you can decide to go ahead with it or not...I would be wary if hes not able to quantify what the figure would be especially as you have some estimates in place.

I would also be wary if he comes up with a % of the final total type figure mainly because those rough estimate you have might well increase when the finer points of specification are taken into account...an example of this for us was our electrician gave us a ballpark of £2995 on the first quote ....but the addition of spotlighting/extra sockets etc and a few more modifications once we went forward increased the bill to just short of £4000...increases we were happy with because it gave us exactly what we wanted but extra money all the same.

I think my other advice would also be to get a few more quotes independantly and see how the figures stack up to the rough estimated this one guy has given you.

keystone

Rickb wrote: »

Was after an indication of the standard fees so if something crazy was proposed I would know it was amiss. I realise job to job there are variances.

Cheers.

What Furts wrote is what I was driving at really.

Cheers