To ask you to guess how much I’ve been quoted?

[BrainScience]

I bought my dream house at the beginning of the year. It’s a beautiful old Victorian property that I dreamed about living in ever since I was a child. It was relatively cheap as nothing has been done to it for about 50 years. As it was cheap we had around 100k left to do it up which I thought would be enough to doit really, really nicely. But everything is so expensive . Everyone who comes round to look at a job will remove a panel/ floor board/ light switch finds something that’s bodged it dangerous behind it and it ends up costing twice as much and taking twice as long.

The next job that needs doing is the exterior painting and guttering replaced. At the moment it is just concrete render and is a similar size to the one in the photo I’ve attached, although only bay windows downstairs rather than upstairs too. The wood that the guttering is being stuck doesn’t need replacing and the cost of the scaffolding isn’t included either. I’m in an average sized tourist town in the SW.

The price I’ve been is so much more than I was thinking but I don’t know if that’s me being overly optimistic or decorator thinking I have more money than I do!

No idea but - and I know it shouldn’t make a difference - but are you dealing with the workmen yourself?
A couple of years ago we had some plans drawn up to have an extension rebuilt and was told we were looking at around the £20k mark for all the work. My husband was working away at the time so I had the builders around to quote and the lowest one came in at £30k. We were most put out as £20k was right at the top of our then budget, but we desperately needed the work doing. So we called around a few other companies and they came when my husband was home. Those quotes ranged from between £19-25k. I was not impressed and now I’m very skeptical if asking make tradesmen for quotes - I let my husband sort it, just in case!

The wood that the guttering is being stuck doesn’t need replacing and the cost of the scaffolding isn’t included either.
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You're paying trades to do this - scaffolding is the thick end of 500 a week for a builder to rent, its got to be put up, and taken down again - the wood behind the guttering, if that needs replacing you are far better to get UPVC, I know you have to pay someone but the boards themselves are only 20 quid a piece in the DIY merchants, dont get a double glaziing company to do yoru soffits, they charge silly money - you shouldnt be paying anymore than 200 a day for one trade, and 80-100 if he has a labourer with him.

Me laddo has jsut rendered a house (SE) which has taken a week and its cost 3K, one trade, one labourer, plus scaffold and materials

Painting alone Prob at least 5k

I was shocked how much it costs to paint the exterior of our house. It was only a refresh and 2 sides. That said, it was pebble dashed so took a very long time

I’ve been doing it myself and ‘d’h has decided he wants to live in a different house with a different woman 😂.

Quote was over 7.5K, then scaffolding is nearly £600 p/w to rent on top.A lot of the cost seems to be that they need to do at least 2-3 coats. I’m never moving again.

Oh well before I saw your update I was thinking 8K so not far off. That’s based on a similar job (SE England) I had done about four years ago for a v large Victorian property. That did have soffit and fascia done too though. How many quotes have you arranged?

My house is being rendered in July - it's costing 12.5k, talked down from 14k. I was prepared for it though.

I'm in Yorkshire

I don't know the answer but the house is beautiful. Congratulations!

My friend had a similar sized house rendered last year: £8000 plus scaffolding and a skip or two. I think you've been 'overly optimistic'...

Yes, I’ve clearly been over optimistic. I’ve had a few guys come round to look at the job, this was the first quote that came through though. Bollocks.

I'm just here to say I'm extremely jealous of your house!

I would say to do up a house like this woukd cost about 500k at least.

Not sure about the rendering, so I will just :
Think of a figure, add a nought and double it. (That's the formula you have been looking for)

48,000

It's not the op's house in the picture.

£2000-£3000 ? That's my guess

Scaffolding should be nothing like that cost. It costs a bit to put it up and take it back down but not much to rent once up. We had scaffolding up at the front of our house (normal semi, not as big as yours) 2 years ago. We are in SE. It cost £300 plus VAT to put it up and take it down and then £15 per plus VAT for each week we had it. My husband did the painting to save money so yet was up for a v long time but still cheaper than paying someone to paint.

MY DH also replaced the guttering. He is only reasonably handy and he said it wasn't a difficult job.

Painting you can definitely do yourselves. My 70 yr old mum paints her own house!

See how much you can get scaffolding for as I said above it's not much different for a week than for two months cost wise.

Get quotes on just the guttering only if that seems like too much of a job and look at doing the painting yourselves.

FYI My DH said the guttering you buy just clips together and screws into place. You need to make sure it's in the correct place so it collects the water properly and drains properly. Guttering to buy is cheep as chips.

Sounds like you will save a lot if you can do at least some of it yourselves.

That’s not my house in the picture, I was just showing it to give an idea of size. What made you think 500k 3lucky? That’s more than the entire house cost!

Unfortunately I can’t do any of it myself as I’m a single mum with 2 young kids.

It would be worth popping the kids in nursery and hiring some scaffolding tbh. It isn't difficult to paint a house just time consuming. Might be worth getting a few more quotes and worth looking around for a decent handyman for things like the guttering.

Find a local builder with a good reputation ( my DH) rather than a big company, he will have lots of contacts and do deals with them to get the price down. My DH will get scaffolding and boards for a fixed price as they might not be needed elsewhere small trades help each other out to keep cost down

If you're worried about being ripped off then get a few quotes from Checkatrade.com. A general rule of thumb is that you will pay more for a job from a building firm with posh sign written vans to a small guy maybe working on his own, that can do just as good a job. It's worth shopping around and if you can get word of mouth recommendations, they are worth their weight in gold!

The house is beautiful though, op. No help whatsoever but it certainly deserves it!

And very often tradespeople will recommend people they ve worked with before. E.g. the plumber who installed our bathrooms recommended a tiler and the tiler who did our kitchen recommended a painter etc.

Unfortunately I can’t do any of it myself as I’m a single mum with 2 young kids

You either pay dollar or have to get stuck in tbh.

I have renovated myself
I waited and saved to do things in stages this meant I found “bargains” as I went which saved on materials.
I broke costs down and sourced all materials myself, and most importantly I learned to get handy and do “Charlie work” (gross jobs). This saved me thousands on day labourer costs.
I leave plumbing, electrics, carpentry and plastering to professionals but take off all non essentials and all the rest I do myself.
That means unskilled work like removing the old kitchen, stripping paper, cleaning up floor after blown plaster hiding behind wall paper goes everywhere, prep the plaster on the walls where the plaster wasn’t blown, ripping out the skirting, once the carpenter fitted the new skirting, sanding and filling it x3 while crying that I have no fingerprints left on my hands and my knees hurt

You get the idea 😂👍

Lucky you though, the house sounds gorgeous!
I also think you also need very little to make Victorian houses sing.

Sounds about right to me especially with scaffolding.

Op I have no experience of refurbish a house however I do have some advice to avoid another nasty suprise.

You may already be aware and done all this but if your not have you looked into your gas appliances and supply?

The reason I ask is I do this for a job. With your house being old and large, it's likely that any new appliances you fit new boiler/range cooker, gas fire ect will be too large in capacity for your current gas supply and meter to handle.

You need to find out how much gas you need all together (each appliance will have their max gas requirement written on them) and contact your energy supplier for a capacity check (referred to as a gt1)
This checks your incoming gas supply to ensure its large enough to meet your needs. Your energy supplier may also need to fit a larger meter for you (which should be free)

If you don't have a large enough gas supply pipe you will either need to change some of your appliances to electric or pay to have your gas pipes enlarged by your gas network (likely southern gas if you are in the south) and this can cost a lot of money.

I have had a lot of customers where this is one of the last things they look to get done and it all.comes as a rather nasty suprise that they will need to spend a further wodge and have their lovely new driveway dug up, kitchen dismantled ect.

If you need further advice please do pm me xx