Extension costs

zoemk12

Hi
what sort of quotes per sq m have people been getting for an extension? Particularly in the SE? When you look online it’s around £1500 but a friend has just been quoted £3000 per sq m! 

Seems v high. Basically over 50k for a kitchen extend and downstairs shower room and this doesn’t include new kitchen 😬

Doozergirl

£1500 is pretty low, especially as we're experiencing hyperinflation in the construction industry.  No one wants a simple specification anymore either.  

There is no set formula, but something smaller will cost more per square metre than something larger, irregular shapes cost more than squares, specification makes a huge difference, plus no bathroom fits into an average cost, nor does the kitchen.  Then there's whatever amount of renovation needed inside the house, there's no formula for that either.  

Intelligent design will keep costs down. 

Without seeing plans, I can't help much, but most people's requirements for the current fashion of extensions creating large open plan spaces with big doors and rooflights saw us providing at around £2,500 a metre before the world went nuts.  

Bricks I was quoted on in September were 37.5% more expensive this week.   Aluminium bifolds were 25% more expensive between Feb and March!! 

TELLIT01

As Doozergirl said, building material prices are suffering hyper-inflation.  Somebody on TV in the past couple of days said prices had increased by about 40% and they expected them to carry on upward.

zoemk12

Hi
thanks for the replies, certainly eye opening. Do you think it will calm down soon? 

Thanks 

travis-powers

zoemk12 said:

Hi
thanks for the replies, certainly eye opening. Do you think it will calm down soon? 

Thanks 

Honestly no, not until the big construction sites stop building and start missing targets set by the government.
 It’s a joke no one can give a quote that they can stand by with 30, 40 % increases month by month, it’s worse than a recession and with labour costs spiralling!

casper_gutman

Our extension is nearing structural completion and will have cost about £1900 per square metre (on an extension of 24 square metres). That's the cost of putting up the extra walls, roof etc to the point where there are plastered (but not decorated) walls there. 

The above is based on the costs in the spreadsheet the builders gave us with their line by line costings for items that went into the actual foundations, drains, walls, roof, windows, doors etc.

If you just took the total cost of the project and divided by the area, you'd get a figure closer to £4500 per square metre added to the existing house, but you'd be counting the cost of extensive structural alterations to the original house, plus kitchen, flooring, tiling etc. which is all very project-specific. After all, a kitchen could be anything from a few thousand upwards of six figures, depending on what you want (and who you want it from).

ETA: it's worth saying the builders quoted on this project in December last year. So far there have been unforeseeable extras due to surprises the existing house had up its sleeves, but the builders have worked to the original costs they quoted. If asked to quote now the bottom line would likely be more to reflect increases in materials as discussed above!

Rosa_Damascena

I can't see prices for materials ever coming down now, they will hold at best until the next big hike.

Doozergirl

there's a huge problem with the price of shipping containers.   The major cargo companies seem to be operating a cartel. 

I'm not sure what the pirce is at the moment, but a few weeks ago,
my decking supplier was paying $16,500 a container as opposed to $3,000!!  

A wholesale furniture company that I use have been in the news talking of the same
problem.  They've had to stop providing some smaller lines because the price increase on those items wouldn't be at all realistic.  

I saw that the wholesale price of timber had fallen recently, but like oil, I don't known when that passes to the consumer.  

Rosa_Damascena

Doozergirl said:

there's a huge problem with the price of shipping containers.   The major cargo companies seem to be operating a cartel. 

I'm not sure what the pirce is at the moment, but a few weeks ago,
my decking supplier was paying $16,500 a container as opposed to $3,000!!  

A wholesale furniture company that I use have been in the news talking of the same
problem.  They've had to stop providing some smaller lines because the price increase on those items wouldn't be at all realistic.  

I saw that the wholesale price of timber had fallen recently, but like oil, I don't known when that passes to the consumer.  

The 12th...?