Impossibly cheap extensions on TV shows?

richard686

Anyone get the feeling that many of these make over / double your house TV shows feature impossibly cheap costs, just to stimulate the building trade?

I recently got quotes for a single story extension (an Orangery actually, so it has quite a bit of glass) of about 7.5m x 4.5m and they came in around £50k to £60k, putting the cost at around £1700 a sq meter. That's for one empty room basically.

I was quoted over £8k just to lay the floor slab and brickwork up to the DPC. (I've already dug the footings...)

I love these shows when they show these massive two story wrap around extensions, complete with a complete refurb inside and a new kitchen, adding hundreds of thousands of pounds to the value of the house, for £40 or £50k...

Maybe I need to find some Latvian builders....

tigsly

I listened to Kirsty Alsop (or makes it up as she goes along.. as I like to call her) .. the other say she said you could 'fit' a bathroom for 2K , a kitchen for 5K knock a wall down for around 1K..

tiles, flooring, painting, making good.. and I think the prices are optimisitic (and ceratinly not where I am..)

bris

tigsly wrote: »

I listened to Kirsty Alsop (or makes it up as she goes along.. as I like to call her) .. the other say she said you could 'fit' a bathroom for 2K , a kitchen for 5K knock a wall down for around 1K..

tiles, flooring, painting, making good.. and I think the prices are optimisitic (and ceratinly not where I am..)

And that's decent stuff at those prices, if your a professional you can do those prices with change. If your a "I'll buy this property give it a lick of paint and double my money" type of guy then you will run over budget.


It's not what you know, it's who you know.

DaftyDuck

I've recently had an orangery (for my orange trees!) added to a house, 9.5m by 4.5m, and the structure was put in for around £15,500. Tiling I did myself, electrician did the business for £400. For the £50 to £60k the OP was being quoted, I'd expect a two storey extension of two decent rooms, pitched roof, fully kitted out to a reasonable standard.

I've never watched Ms Alsop, so can't comment on the quality of what she's doing, but a wall out or a kitchen in for the prices quoted above.... Yes, done most of those in various properties, to reasonable quality. Most recent of those, bathroom and ensuite created from scratch, wall removed, replastered, plumbing and electrics, all tiling and finishing, cost £4,000. It's a good job too... And yes, some of the guys were European, worked well, hard and late,spoke perfect English nice chaps.

I'm not in London, those jobs are Cambridge and Kent. I do search hard for good workmen with sensible pricing. I use smaller companies, never a national chain, and I'm quite happy to dig in and dig a hole!

Getting a good workforce together, with a clear and precise idea of what you want, and exactly what you want each to do, is key to getting good work at good prices.

kaya

richard686 wrote: »

Anyone get the feeling that many of these make over / double your house TV shows feature impossibly cheap costs, just to stimulate the building trade?

I recently got quotes for a single story extension (an Orangery actually, so it has quite a bit of glass) of about 7.5m x 4.5m and they came in around £50k to £60k, putting the cost at around £1700 a sq meter. That's for one empty room basically.

I was quoted over £8k just to lay the floor slab and brickwork up to the DPC. (I've already dug the footings...)

I love these shows when they show these massive two story wrap around extensions, complete with a complete refurb inside and a new kitchen, adding hundreds of thousands of pounds to the value of the house, for £40 or £50k...

Maybe I need to find some Latvian builders....

8k to lay the slab? Do you live in a big flash house and look like you are minted? Three years ago we had a family friend build our extension, its 3x5 m wooden framed with a huge roof lantern and bi folding doors, he did everything inc plastering , electrics and flooring, fitted a radiator, clearing the site, digging footings etc. we paid for the glass and floor tiles on top He also had to remove a kitchen window and it a smaller one and make good , now I know he is a friend so didn't take the mickey but he made a tidy few quid for himself on top and we only paid him £8k , and it was a proper job by a professional builder as well so 8k to lay a slab is really extortionate, after all it's some ballast, concrete, insulating polystyrene and a DPM with a few bricks , I can't see more than £500 of materials and maybe a weeks work if he works alone, so he wanted to charge you £7500 for a weeks work ? Even if I'm wrong and its £2k of materials and two weeks work that is £3500 a week, I think the phrase is that he "saw you coming a mile off" .

seven-day-weekend

Our kitchen was £2k, would have been £3k if we'd paid someone to fit it.

davilown

richard686 wrote: »

Anyone get the feeling that many of these make over / double your house TV shows feature impossibly cheap costs, just to stimulate the building trade?

I recently got quotes for a single story extension (an Orangery actually, so it has quite a bit of glass) of about 7.5m x 4.5m and they came in around £50k to £60k, putting the cost at around £1700 a sq meter. That's for one empty room basically.

I was quoted over £8k just to lay the floor slab and brickwork up to the DPC. (I've already dug the footings...)

I love these shows when they show these massive two story wrap around extensions, complete with a complete refurb inside and a new kitchen, adding hundreds of thousands of pounds to the value of the house, for £40 or £50k...

Maybe I need to find some Latvian builders....

I think you definitely need to get more quotes! An orangery for £50k? Even Everest wouldn't charge you that much (they quoted me £27k for a 4m x 9m orangery from scratch, including removal of conservatory).

I've had a various jobs on the house done in the past year, garage conversion being the latest. You need to get more than 3 quotes and don't overlook the small family builders.

richard686

Thanks for the feedback!

Well we do live in a big house, but I wouldn't say flash!

We are in Dorset (and no we're not near Sandbanks!).

So going back to prices, I have found that going for wooden framed windows/doors/lantern triples the price of the glazing from around £10k to £30k. I have three quotes for the glazing and all came in at around the same.

The Lantern, 2.4m X 5.4m comes in at around £8k

Bi-folds, 3.5m wide, around £4k

2 pairs of triple sash windows 2.3m wide, around £5k each.

The building works costs, well 2 quotes so far, several 'too busy'. One quote at around £20k (that's everything except supplying and fitting the glazing) and another at around £35k.

I was expecting it to cost somewhere around £25k all in!

I have tried small and larger builders and I more than ready to do as much as I can myself (footings dug already and I will probably lay the slab too).

richard686

davilown wrote: »

I think you definitely need to get more quotes! An orangery for £50k? Even Everest wouldn't charge you that much (they quoted me £27k for a 4m x 9m orangery from scratch, including removal of conservatory).

I've had a various jobs on the house done in the past year, garage conversion being the latest. You need to get more than 3 quotes and don't overlook the small family builders.

Ha! Everest quoted us £85k to replace our windows! They were surprised I didn't take them up on it... (and that was after 2 days of haggling)

richard686

We also looked into a large'ish extension on a rental property we have. A small 2+box semi. We wanted to add a rear ground floor full width extension and two bedrooms over the garage.

This was 5 years ago.

Quoted £100k...

We didn't bother.

Anyway back to the current project, the Orangery!

System

richard686 wrote: »

Maybe I need to find some Latvian builders....

I wish you luck. If the Met Police with their resources can't find one then you stand no chance.