Buying Building Materials in Advance

uncommonadvice

I am planning to do a 30 metre squared extension over the next 5 years. Plenty of time as not moving anywhere else.

Would you recommend buying materials in advance?

I have plenty of space for storage.

phill99

Why tie your money up in building materials.

Do you genuinely know what life has in store for you next year let alone 5 years? None of us know. Your life maybe changed up side down. So buying all your materials is like throwing money away. You buy stuff with all good intentions, then next week you have to sell up and move. What will you do with your materials? You could try and sell them but will get a fraction of the cost.

phoebe1989seb

Agree with Phill99 - we've renovated many period properties and have occasionally been tempted to buy stuff (not necessarily building materials, but architectural salvage type stuff for example) ahead of schedule, but so often your plans change and what may have been ideal/useful becomes less so.

If it were me, apart from being *dead money*, I wouldn't want to commit to buying materials for building work that could change shape/format over the next few years......

Furts

I stored materials in advance of my extensions for a period of two years. These were surplus materials from completed building sites.

OP needs to be aware frost damaged the edges of the concrete bricks, and some of the facebricks. General pollution and dust coated the drainage - all had to be cleaned, rain damaged the Celotex insulation, bindweed and hazel took over the storage area...etc

I would never have followed this procedure had the materials not been free of charge.

Hope this helps.