Would LOVE some mumsnet wisdom/advice re builders

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Hello, would really love some advice please 🙏🏼

We have a builder lined up to start on our extension. But not surprisingly we don’t want to spend the full amount this builder has quoted anymore. It seems a lot. South east 84k for a 4m extension. This price includes a 4kish kitchen, flooring and bi folds. We’re waiting for the remortgage to be approved and it looks like we’ll have 75k now anyway due to the current lower value. We couldn’t have an actual person come round and value... so they took average.

My question is. We wanted this builder because he recently did a friends but most importantly he has availability. We’ve been living in a temporary kitchen for nearly 4 years and we have 4 children, it’s effecting my mental health now... more so now than ever!

So my real question is. Do you think more builders might have availability because other people won’t want to start projects on their houses because of impending recession?! Around here there’s a huge wait for building work.

Thanks if you’ve read this far. Feeling overwhelmed and I’d feel bad letting this builder down but he’s starting to seem too expensive... and I’m worried we’ll spend more than the house is worth...

I think you should sense check any price of that amount.

We had a builder lined up, very happy really wanted to use him, but the price took a massive jump at the last minute due to some fine tuning. We then went back to the drawing board and got 3 other quotes. I can tell you that like for like quotes varied by 34%!

I honestly believe that builders price depending on how much work they have. You should not just go with the first one, but with a tight specification you should shop about.

I could not be happier with our builder and he was the most cost effective - or cheapest one!

BTW 4m x what width?

It’s 4m long, 6m wide

General price to get it to second skin (aka plastered but not decorated or fitted) in south east is £3k per square meter

Thank you for responding Bristol x

I just can’t wait another 6 months for another builder.... can’t live like this anymore :(

South east 84k for a 4m extension.South east 84k for a 4m extension.

Wow, that seems a lot. We've just done a 4m by 7m extension with the same area inside the house being gutted and redone (steels replacing walls, new electrics, drains and plumbing).

We paid 40k for build to second fix. Very large painted wood-veneer kitchen was another 9k for everything including appliances and fitting.

5k for a crazy expensive LVT floor (a lot of that was work on the poor quality sub floor).

Another 5k for miscellany- decorating, arcitect, structural engineer, tiling and random bits.

We are NW, so probably a lot cheaper than your going rate but there was huge variation in quotes. We could easily have spent what you did if we'd gone for the expensive builder and kitchen quotes.

Well I suppose then that's your answer. You could try renegotiating.

However I think you'll find other projects are shelved and people are not moving either. This means that builders could well have a lot less work.

I think 3K per sqm is far higher than I've ever seen quoted on here.

Try and get some more quotes. It’s always best to do this anyway but I usually do say any tradesperson with immediate availability probably won’t be the best. The good ones are always in work, even in this current situation.

Our 96sqm extension plus internal reconfiguration was quoted at 225k without kitchen if that's any help to you.
General opinion is 2k per sqm of new build but it's probably nearer to 2.4 these days in the south east. Your quote sounds a bit high but not astronomical and does include a kitchen and he's your preferred builder. Be VERY sure of what is NOT included in any quote, it's where expectation vs reality comes and kicks you in the balls.

@Bristolbitsandbobs £3k is the figure in your area that we are advised to use by CIAT but hey what do we know

@carolebaskinsheadband no need to be so touchy! 2k has been quoted to people for a long time so that's what people are used to. My own architects quoted 'from 2k' so it's not completely ill-informed information and it stands to reason it will vary.
Looking at this - www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/housepriceshowmuchdoesonesquaremetrecostinyourarea/2017-10-11
There is huge range in price! Woking came out at £4800 /sqm though so I'm calling BS

I live nr London and I'm surprised you're quoting so high. I didn't dress this up as fact, I questioned it... not exactly something to get excited about. We are in the middle of a build and £3k is much more than we are paying.

The cost of sold property in our area is £5,836 per m² according to Loofah's link

We’ve had huge variation on prices for a very large extension plus configurations. We’re outer London and it’s 2k sqm

Way too expensive. Get more quotes. (South east too)

Wtf. That is astronomical. We did a 10x 3.5m attached to another part of the house that formed part of the wider remodelling. This also included walling off other parts of the ground floor, 4 expensive Velux, underfloor heating and expensive internal glass dividing doors etc plus 2 kitchens, one of which is huge with large slabs of quartz.

Relaying of paths outside, landscaping the garden

£70k for everything! Only caveat it wasn't the south east.

He is taking advantage as he knows you want him to do it.

Still don't think it's astronomical. It's on the high side but location and inclusion of the kitchen can account for a lot. He is the preferred builder and a known quantity (worth a lot to me!) and as the OP said, this is affecting mental health. I'd ask to see where reductions might be made (kitchen is obvious choice for me) and agree to a lower figure

I so appreciate your replies. The said builder has done a very good job at a friends house. He has availability as his company is usually in commercial construction. He was in and out on time, 12 schedule etc. We have had lower quotes but we can’t for love nor money pin them down on a start date/give them a holding deposit.

I have made 2 more calls today. Another recommended builder wouldn’t be able to start till Aug 21! I was sort of hoping rather selfishly that some more builders would suddenly have more availability. But that looks unlikely.

I think we’ll try and have a meeting and discuss ways to lower the figure... thanks so much again x

To be honest square metres can be a rough guide but at the end of the day the quote will reflect the amount of materials and work that needs to go into the job, people band about lots of things but a steel beam adds zero square metres, as do bifold doors, plumbing, etc so unless you're going for a box on the back with one light switch and one radiator, which is never a great idea, you need to get away from cost per metre fairly soon in the process.
To the op you are doing the right thing evaluating your options, but i don't think there's ever a good time, there's always something going on making labour shortage and material price increases. Value engineering will be your best option,

Pressed send too soon i meant to say value engineering if you don't want to compromise on the timescale, which it sounds like you're doing already. Good luck!

You’ve mentioned a 4K ish kitchen and flooring. Are these allowances, because if they are , 4K won’t go very far in a kitchen by the time you have got the worktops etc. Depends on the quality and the size and number of units, but you could well find that the price shoots right up. Same as flooring - what is the allowance? On a project of that price I would want to be having something in there of reasonable quality. As you’ve lived with a temporary arrangement for a while couldn’t you just bite the bullet and continue whilst getting some further quotes? Also make sure that whoever you end up using has a liability insurance policy and ask to see the current certificate. Not all tradesmen do.

Builders are struggling to get materials at the moment so this will be delaying things even if they have availability to do the work.

Just make sure you have a very tight contract that you write yourself. Don't reply on the FMB one as it's a contract written by builders for builders.

JCT contract seemed ok to me

I'm not sure id recommend writing a contract yourself, unless you have a very good idea about what might go wrong and how to protect against it.
JCT is indeed apparently good, we used the riba one as our architect was riba, and that was good, if a little overkill for a domestic extension.
For what it's worth the builder didn't seem to read it in detail but it gave us more leverage to say we needed more evidence of overpayments etc.