Building work

LouLouHelen

Not having had any bui,ding work doen before I am not sure where to start.

We need to understand, currently buying a property and areas of concern pulled up in valuation) the cost of potential work on our new house.

We would want the work undertaken but not straight away, we need to quotes to help us negotiate with the vendor in case there are very expensive necessary jobs that we feel they should pay half for.

I need to know how much it would cost to 'repoint the chimney' and put in lintels above the windows in a small porch that has been added to the front of the house (not by current vendor).

Any suggestions on where to start would be really helpful.

Lemoncurd

We had a quote for repointing - at £35 a metre, that reminds me, must get some more quotes!

weekendwarrior

Hi,

Repointing a chimney could be more expensive than £35 per square metre as the person doing it may insist on the chimney being scaffolded, which will cost a lot more money!

The roofers in my area will re-point a chimney for about £100 from the roof, but if you need scaffolding it will be a lot more as scafolders don't like scaffolding on roofs incase they crack any tiles!

For the lintel I would get three quotes from local builders as it is impossible to guess without seeing how much work is involved!

Good Luck

LittleJo

Hi,
I am not quite sure why you feel the vendor should pay half. If it is a fault that needs rectifying rhen he should pay all. Negotiate in price of house.
Jo

LouLouHelen

Well the electrican and the plumber are going round on Sunday to look at the property as per the recommendation of the valuer.

If the house need rewiring and the boiler is slapped with a warning notice - what should I expect from vendor?

boogiemaster

You should have got a discount from the vendor so that any work that needed to be done would be knocked off the price of the house!

If you find any hidden work that needs to be done it can cost a small fortune! You don’t find faults until you start doing up your house and improving it.

When you do find faults its too late and costly! Always agree a price reduction so that work can be paid for from the reduction.

Or ask the vendor to put right any work that needs to be done before sale goes through.

Rewiring a house can cost well over £2000 depending on size; a boiler can cost £1000 plus for a good one.

The vendor should have the work done and you shouldn’t have to pay! He will loose a sale and I don’t think he will want that.

Lintels can cost a few quid if they are made from stone! A friend bought a stone one four foot long and paid £120. My other friend paid £400 to have his chimney pointed.

Get a reduction in price to have the work done, or have the vendor do the work and nock off some money.

rossyl

TRUST me we've had sooo many problems with builders we've learnt the hard way. Even recommended builders can turn out to a nightmare.

Go here...

http://www.nhbc.co.uk/Registeredbuilders/Buildercheck/


Get a fully approved builder to give you a FULL DETAILED price. tell them you want specified costs for every piece of material, and every hour of labour.

Ball-park figures are useless. We went to some highly recommended builders in the area to which we were buying, told them exactly what we wanted to do, they said £35k roughly. We bought the house. The more we met the higher the price went eventually reuslting in them giving us a £80k quote!

So be very careful. NHBC is the way to go. Get quotes from "regular yellow pages builders" then get a quote for a fully insyred and gauranteed job from an NHBC registered builder. Anything up to 15% more I would say is worth it.