Anyone Project Managing a single storey extension/going directly to trades?

[Lavenderdays]

So, we have had 3 hefty quotes back for our (rather large) house extension (kitchen/diner plus additional reception room). Just wondering if anyone is employing trades directly rather than employing a builder to oversee their project and if so, did you calculate how much you are likely to be saving? Our extension would cost in the region of £70,000 to build with under floor heating/new boiler etc...what proportion of this is likely to be the builder's wage do you think?

We had a quote of £130,000 for a double storey extension across two sides of our house. That quote was to get the building up/watertight/knock through and floors poured ready for tiling/kitchen fitting.

I project managed it commissioning trades and paid our builders £15,000 labour. That was for pouring the footings and all brick/block works

We paid around £2000 for the joiners who did the roofs and floorboarding.

The roof tilers cost £2500 labour only.

We haven’t finished yet so still have to pay electricians and plumbers, we’ve spent around £500 so far on these and are up to first fix.

Roughly we will have spent around £70,000 including materials compared to the £130,000 quote however it has come with lots of work and taking an excessive amount of time. My DH has done lots of prep work/digging/drilling/concreting and I spent most of my maternity leave on the phone haggling with builders merchants

Bawbles could you give a very very brief idiots guide on how to go about this?

Our estimates for our extension are just FAR FAR too much. Where do you start?

I think our total build including a new (middle of the range kitchen) will be nudging £90,000, much more than we estimated and would like to spend. Did your estimates come in at roughly the same amounts Villanelle?

Villanelle
We spoke with a couple of builders and luckily our preferred ones (who had worked on several friends of friends projects) were open to a ‘day rate’

They looked at plans and estimated how many weeks work it was and we agreed a day rate - so for budgeting we knew that xx weeks times xx per day was a rough labour figure.

They gave me estimates on how many bricks to buy etc and would give me a weekly list of materials as there wasn’t space to have it all delivered at once.

I’d ring round and get quotes for the stuff, the merchants soon get used to haggling and would beat other quotes etc

The builders would give me a heads up when I needed to be thinking about other trades - ie ‘we will be ready to fit the decorative lintels in three weeks and that’s usually the production time so you might want to get them ordered now’

We lived in it throughout so I was there when the odd thing went wrong as would nip out in car to fetch anything (this was rare as they were pretty organised)

Trades wise we had some contacts but also they would tell me details of who they usually used so I’d get quotes from them all. Some quotes I thought were mental (scaffolding!!) they reassured me were very normal

We asked them to do a few extras and as we discussed these they would say ‘that will be roughly another three days Work etc’

They’d prompt me when the building inspector needed to come and check stuff too and I’d ring and sort that.

There was some frictions at times - the builders def thought towards the end they’d been too cheap and get telling me how much of a good deal they’d done me.

We couldn’t afford them to do everything so anything unskilled my DH did evenings and weekends - they understood this and would suggest where he could do extras etc

One supplier who had been prebooked to deliver roof trusses for weeks let me down at 3 days notice which was awful at the time and meant we spent Christmas without a roof as we had to start again with another company.

They def hand helded me initially which was a huge help and then when they left I hadn’t a much better handle on how things worked and have been able to get on with it.

The main pitfall was coordinating so people came at the right time - I had the joiners and roof tiler booked in but when the timber wasn’t delivered we had to cancel and rebook them based on their availability so there were then gaps between trades.

If I had the budget I’d have had it all done by a company however the money we have saved is staggering

I think we could do it - dh has project management experience plus very practical. I am at home (but do have a baby at home with me), so free to make phone calls etc. plus I am good at haggling so I think I would probably enjoy this. We could obviously do without the hassle and dh has concerns about managing certain aspects of the build, so we are trying to work out how much we are likely to save on this scale of build as to whether it would be worthwhile going down this route. I am aware that there are other disadvantages such as the build being dragged out for longer but I don't believe it is beyond our realms of capability.

Thanks for all of that info bawbles, it was good of you to take the time.

That's almost a 50% saving bawbles...that will be amazing if you bring it in on that budget.

Anyone else out (or nearly out) the other side of this type of project?

Sorry, correction, that is just over a 50% saving bawbles!

@Lavenderdays

That price includes the windows and doors which weren’t included in the original quote (we had new on the existing house too) so we will have come under £60k excluding that.

But as I mentioned on another thread I’ve had no running water downstairs since sept 17 and have a temporary kitchen set up in my dining room (camping stove and a fridge)

Having my DH do labour has saved lots of money but he works full time so it’s evenings/weekends. Jobs that might take the builders 4/5 days could take him two months bitting and bobbing.

We are very focused on staying in budget so have put up with a lot of disruption

He’s currently laying the UFH pipework, we had a company online design the system and supply it, DH is laying the pipework, pressure testing it and then we will have the screen laid on top. The plumber is just coming to connect it to the central heating.

Project managing it is achievable especially on mat leave, I’m pretty organised and manage stress well and it was 95% fine, 5% crackers. The main thing is the time it takes, absolutely consumed my days.

Wow thanks so much for that @Bawbles! Our extension is 66sqm, cheapest estimate I’ve had is 66-70k basing it on £1000 per sqm and have had figures right up over £100k so it’s just completely unaffordable for us.

I work every day (some days only till half two but then it’s straight to school for the kids) so I don’t know if I’d even have the time. I am obsessed with the work though, I spend so much time thinking about it, talking about it, researching it so maybe would be a good way to channel that!

My OH has his own digger so could possibly dig the founds or a the very least we save on machine hire cost but there is nothing else at all we’d manage on our own 😩

Thanks again for the detailed reply!

Not the same work, but we had quotes for our very large cellar that were just way too expensive. Decided in the end to project manage it myself. We haven’t finished yet but we are nearly there. Everything has gone really well, touch wood, and we haven’t had any big disruptions that have caused things to fall out of sync.

It has been very time consuming but interesting and quite enjoyable. I’ve done an awful lot of research on some very random things! Our quotes ranged from approx £45-£80k. The cheaper one didn’t include things like decorating, flooring etc, it was just bare bones.

I’m expecting it to come in around £30k for everything, including high end flooring and a new bathroom that wasn’t in any of the other quotes. So it’s deifnitely saved us a lot of money and we will end up with a nicer, higher end living space.

Get recommendations for electricians and plumbers. Have them roughly booked in advance and then at least if they’re expecting to come to you one week they can always slightly jiggle jobs around if it needs moving by a day or two.

@Villanelle123

Ours is 110 square metres, 66 of that is new ground floor.

We have bought the sanitaryware for two new bathrooms within that but have not yet purchased a kitchen or flooring. We will probably buy from DIY for the kitchen and still have no idea on the flooring.

Digging the footings saved lots of cash, we hired a man with a jcb who did the lot in half a day. His fee (which included the machine) was less than the builders day rate and they had quoted 3/4 days plus mini digger hire. We had the builders come in and spray paint the ground with the lines beforehand.

If you are managing it you need to be around/available lots as things came up (dodgy located gas pipe was one) that required sorting quickly to prevent the builders not being able to keep working. My DH had the odd day off too if we were having deliveries to help unload as some places charge more if the unloading goes over a certain length of time.

We used some reclaimed materials as its a old property and managed to source some bargains. The downside was the tiler wasn't as good as estimating quantities as the builder so we now have 600 spare welsh slates..

I genuinely can’t believe how much you’ve both saved doing this!

Did you feel confident enough dealing with the builders etc? I’m only 26 and not the most assertive of characters so would be worried they might take a rise out of me.

One builder gave us an estimated breakdown of labour and my OH did balk and the digging costs!

I so want to do this!

It was tricky at times. DH is a gentle soul and won't challenge anything but because I was managing it all he went through a stage of trying to micromanage me and kept telling me 'ask them why xxx' etc. Usually implying that they were slacking (we had bad weather a few days so the downside of day rate is you still have to pay even if they are sitting in the van)

But we didn't have the budget to do it any other way so you just have to make the best of it.

Our planned extension is 55m2 and is working out at around £75,000 (we need a new boiler and want underfloor heating). The groundworks on one quote (not specified in the others) looked expensive at around £18,000 - so it is interesting that you mention a man with jcb works out cheaper bawbles. We also want a lot of glass including a lantern roof, so this is also costly. I don't think dh could do much of the physical work himself, so we wont really save very much in that respect. Having someone on hand is no problem because I am here, I think I would find it a great challenge but might get fed up when I realise that I have little time for anything else, there again it is all about choice - time or money.

I think I would be confident dealing with the builders/trades people so not phased by that bit (much older than you Villan and getting to the point of becoming rude/saying what I think and not really caring sadly).

I’ve seen a few extensions with a lantern roof and they have all been gorgeous @lavenderdays

Our groundworks came in at around £3000 - this was mostly the cost of the concrete and the pump with only half a day of labour from the builders levelling the mix plus the jcb man.

DH dug a small section by hand due to the bloody gas pipe - we are very lucky he is in great shape and has spent a lot of time doing crappy jobs to save labour costs

Going to mention the jcb man to my dh - I am inspired! Your dh sounds as if he has worked very hard on your build but with 3 dcs (including 2 fairly young ones = sleepless nights) I think I would get quite stressed if dh was spending loads of time on the build and therefore not able to give me a helping hand, so I cant really blame dh for not considering this.

Some really great and useful info on here bawbles, thank you!

Out of interest, what part of the UK are you in?

@HappyDaddio

Midlands so luckily no London premiums for us.

Same, we've just bought a place near Lichfield. Lovely plot with the wrong house on it so a remodel and extension are needed! A referral for a quote from your builder would be lovely when you're done

Ahh we are much further north, builder doesn’t travel that far. We finished with them ages ago now sadly - I just wish we’d had the budget to have them until completion.

Good luck with your build!