Help with renovation budget

[harrietm87]

We've had an offer accepted on a house that needs a lot of work. We haven't had builders round to look it yet, but would just like to check that the quotes we've got online sound like they are in the right ballpark - afraid it's going to be an absolute money pit. It is a 4 bed Victorian terrace in London and our budget is about 30k for the initial works:

• rewiring -5k
• plumbing and replacing boiler - 5k
• new ikea kitchen and installation - 6k
• flooring throughout (carpet plus tiles in kitchen) - 3k
• replacing ceiling and replastering in one small room, plus tidying up after rewire - 1k
• misc/contingency - 5k

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I don't fancy your chances of making that budget stick. We've just bought a house that needs a lot of work and wanted to do an extension, we had a budget of 80k, everything is at least 50% more than you think it is once you actually get down to it. 6k for a kitchen is extremely optimistic, we have friends who've just put a kitchen in from ikea and it was 20k+ ikea is not as cheap as you think once you factor in appliances and fitting
If you're rewriting you'll be replasterong the whole house as they have to track the cables down walls, once you get into that then you'll end up replacing the skirting boards and may have to do remedial work to any cornicing. Please get builders to quote for the actual work. We ploughed ahead and now are facing having to cash out all of our savings to pay for the work!!

I also think that's a very unrealistic budget. We recently did similar and carpets in 4 bedrooms was £3000. Tiling floors to bathrooms and kitchens was at least another £3000.

Labour costs, particularly for tiling, are really high.

Boiler & replumb. This was nearly 10000 for us. Though we had some new (fancy) radiators for that too.

VAT on top.

I'm sorry but I don't think that budget is realistic either. Anything in London really does cost £££ - quotes we've had for various job have really shocked us! We renovated a small 2 bed terrace about 5 years ago and we managed to do it for around £30k. That's with us doing most of the work ourselves (apart from plastering and carpet laying). I'd definitely get some firm quotes.

I think the jobs listed should be achievable on twice the budget quoted if you shop around. Also, what do you plan to do with other walls and rooms after rewiring? Everything will be ripped apart. Don't you need to replaster and repaint as well? What state are the windows in?

We recently recarpeted a 3 bed Victoria mid terrace (2bed plus loft bedroom) . £3.2k for hall two flights of stairs, 3 beds, small living room and ensuite. That was going for. £16 square meter in bedrooms and £21 in living room and hall so did didntbpick anything than expensive. We didn't do existing bathroom and kitchen diner. Came in 50% more than I had budgeted. So doing a whole 4 bed house all rooms I would think easily £5k or more if you go for higher quality carpets.

The main financial drain with old property is that you cannot just go and do the job you intend to, because there's always something else that has to be factored in.

e.g. you may have the best kitchen layout for you, but find you cannot have a boiler or cooker within a certain distance from windows, so you have to rejig the whole thing.

Sometimes, you find horrors when you're halfway through a refit and have to stop, rethink and the costs escalate because once again, you have to do 4 or 5 jobs you never envisaged, before you can do the one you want to and have the money for.

Watch some renovation programmes and see how quickly budgets get eaten up and costs escalate.

Do you have a project manager? If not, be careful because you can find you have workmen turning up to do a day's work as scheduled but another job isn't finished so they can't start. You have to pay them for their time anyway - who would put up with being told to come back in a few days' time when they'd arrived as scheduled and were ready to work?

Wow this is really helpful - thanks for the replies! Those quotes are the average of the ones I've got - I posted the jobs on find a builder or whatever it's called with pictures and detailed measurements (other than carpet) - do people just quote low to win the work?

The kitchen is really small - I've had an IKEA fitting appointment and already have appliances, so that one at least shouldn't be too wrong.

I would get a project manager but wondering now if it's even affordable.

Oh God, yes. Blank speaks very wise words. There are so many unknowns. We're currently renovating a 3 bed detached Victorian house (which we'll turn into a 4 bed plus a new extension). We've had issues with huge amounts of rubble under the subfloor which was causing damp, a new water supply pipe needed, rotten joists, bowed ceiling. And many more issues.

I don't want to put you off though! I'd still go ahead but proceed with caution and prepare yourselves for the fact that it could take longer if you need to save more. We're doing much of the work ourselves again (argue!) but I don't regret it for minute as it'll be so worth it.

That should have been "argg!" instead of "argue!" but the latter is probably a better description.

We rewired our 4 bed terrace 5 years ago - 15k. New plumbing and boiler 12k. Where are you located roughly? If you're anywhere near london you need to double that budget.

Hi. We are in the middle of refurbishing ....a 4 bed Victorian semi in London. Assuming mid-priced materials, I would say you have sadly underestimated labour costs if you have factored them in at all.

Hard to know exact scale of work but if I were budgeting, based on all we have learned and all our quotes it would be closer to

Rewiring/new consumer unit/testing. £8k
Boiler and plumbing. £8k
Kitchen units and appliances £8k+, £2-3k install including connections
Flooring £5k +
Ceiling including mouldings £1.5k

I hope I am wrong, obviously, but that is absolutely what I would budget for.

We found 'double the ticket price' is a reasonable rule of thumb for budgeting, for instance a £30 per square metre wood floor will be at least £60 psm when labour/trims/underlay/adhesives etc are factored in.

You havent mentioned remedial plastering or redecoration or worktops which could eat into contingency.

We shopped around for keenly priced kitchens, appliances and materials including tiles amd wood flooring and carpets but anything we saved against budget simply went into -seemingly endless labour costs and extras and VAT.

The shining light in all our project costs has been our kitchen from DIY Kitchens, cost rather less than IKEA and we are thrilled with it.

Those quotes are very reasonable. For a standard house not in the se. For London I would double it. For a Victorian terrace I would add 20% contingency at least . 75 k should do a v basic refurb

I think roll up your sleeves, because if you're buying an old house, you always have to do a lot more then you think. As soon as you take up the floor to rewire or do the plumbing you'll see all the previous bodges and/or rotten joists etc etc.
I'm lucky in that I know how to do a lot myself, but it's still a lot of time taken. However with those quotes it'll be cheaper to take a month off work and learn to do it yourself!

We renovated a large 3 bedroom & I don't think your budget it too bad. We live in Edinburgh which also has a bit of a premium but not as high as London I'm guessing.

• rewiring, new fuse box & moving the fuse box from bathroom to under stair cupboard - £3200. The guys we chose went under the floorboards & fed the wires through so didn't Damage the walls. Of the 3 quotes these were the only guys that noticed this could be done & offered it as it's actually harder for them but saved us time & money.

• replacing boiler, 7 new radiators, removing unused pipes & watertank £3600

• Our kitchen was more expensive than yours but fitting was £950 & £50 to install induction hob.

• carpet was £30+/- psm & cost £3200 including fitting of around £500 from John Lewis. Hall flooring was £500, kitchen £260 & £130 to fit it. Bathroom flooring tiles £300. You could pick cheaper options.

• we had a couple of rooms replasteted & it was about £280. One room was 4x4m & the other 2.5x 3m & the ceiling was replasteted in that room too.

Something that cost more than we thought was paint. Despite buying it 3 for 2 we still spent over £800 on Dulux paint.