Calculating works

[thehonscupboard]

Need to carry out major refurbishment. Neither of the builders who have quoted for their labour will quote for materials. Both have made it clear they expect us to calculate this ourselves. I understand with rising prices why they don't want to commit to materials costs and end up out of pocket, but expected a ballpark figure so that we would have a vague idea of what to expect.

It's taken a long time to find anyone who will even reply to our calls, and both builders come highly recommended from friends so we're keen to crack on with things with one or other of them but don't want to agree to works then run out of money mid project.

Certain things we're confident calculating ourselves, but other things we're clueless about/worried that it won't have of occurred to us that we need.

Has anyone got a detailed quote from their refurbishment project so we can have an idea of all the materials that we need to take account of? If we knew what was listed then we might be able to make a better job of things.

• we're not extending but the works will be fairly extensive with a full rewire, knocking down a couple of walls (one load bearing), new kitchen, bathroom, cloakroom, utility. Stud walls put up etc etc.

Any help pointing us in the right direction much appreciated!

There's a fully skilled profession called 'quantity surveyor' who spend years training in this!

It probably sounds as if you need to engage a project manager though, as managing different trades is another particular skill. Or a larger company who does refurbs not individual builders.

I had a lot of work done recently and I would estimate that the labour costs were about 50% of the cost of the work. That wouldn't include your choice of kitchen and bathroom etc. which are obviously very variable depending on what quality you choose. My kitchen units alone cost in the region of £20,000 and the bathroom £5,000.

If you Google Estimators Online, there are companies who do this for extensions and renovations. You might need plans though.

Thanks all. Googling estimators online has been very helpful!

Hiring a quantity surveyor/project manager would be the ideal solution, but would eat into our not huge budget and so limit some of the things that we're able to do.