£96k quote from builder

[hollowmind]

I recently got a quote from a highly recommended builder and I plan to get a few more quotes but just wanted to see whether people think the price it reasonable as I won't waste my time or other builder time if the quotes come in about the same.

I had budgeted £50k but thought it would be around £35k and we were going to move all the furniture into storage, rip out all the carpets and move out the house to allow the work to be done slightly quickly.

We had a previous quote of £15k for just the electric work.

The quote came in at £96k and was to cover the following:

Install 18 double socket plugs
Reinstate 2 double plugs which currently have blanking plates
Install spot lighting in 9 rooms. Roughly 50 in total.
Remove 11 pendant lights
Replace 1 ceiling fan with new one.
Install 3 outside plugs
Update junction box
Install 2 outside lights
Reskim 4 bedrooms, 1 living room, 2 office spaces and hallway including ceilings
Redecorate reskimmed rooms. White paint and white gloss for woodwork excluding doors.
Replace 13 radiators
Replace hot water heater
Replace skirting board and coving as recommend by builder for reskimmed rooms.
Install 3 air con units.

What stands out to me is 50 spot lights is an EXPENSIVE job. That is at least £4k just on lights.

To put that in perspective rewiring the same 9 rooms with a standard pendant lights is more like £900.

I’d advise against 50 spotlights. We’ve got a fuck load because the old owner loved them and they’re an absolute pain in the arse.

That only makes sense if he’s doing a full loft conversion as well.

Ridiculous quote...

Instead you need to find a trusted electrician through recommendations to do the electric work then a plumber to do your heating system.

Once you have done that work get a plasterer to do the walls/ceilings and finish it all by painting the rooms and skirting boards yourself.

The builder is charging for project management and hiring the individual tradesmen.

The builder is a charlatan. For far less than £96,000, he should be breaking down the quote to show labour and materials for each item. You need separate quotes from individual tradesmen, one from an electrician, one from a carpenter, one from a plumber and one from a plasterer. More work for you but far better value.

He doesn't want the job. It's minor maintenance, the price should be 1/2 that.

Same here. I could see what changes the previous owner made from rightmove pics. Added spotlights everywhere. Ripped out a fireplace and replaced with a fugly wall mounted fire. Separate shower and bath removed for a hideous corner jacuzzi thing "we call it our del boy bath" he said 🙈. Floral wallpaper everywhere... luckily badly hung so falling off anyway. Only owned it 5 years but thought those delightful changes warranted the 135k increase 🙄

I was expecting BUILDING work, this is all electrical / plumbing / decorating. No extensions, foundations, RSJs, footings, new kitchen etc. I think it seems extortionate. But the air con threw me, I would have no idea how much it was. I worked in a big building that needed air con twenty years ago and remember it was 30k and my bosses just couldn’t afford to install it.

I absolutely would not bother with having air conditioning installed in a house in the UK.

We had a pretty big extension built for less than that...but we do live t'up north

My DH is a builder. He’s saying £30k. Midlands.
He’s now thinking he should perhaps be working in London, fuck me…😱

I had a massive project done a couple of years ago. Was having a chat with the project manager last week, he said there is such a shortage of builders (due to Brexit, restrictions on immigration etc) that any project under 200k is the Wild West at the moment. Builders accepting work they don’t have capacity for, pricing all over the place. The market is dislocated.

Get more quotes and find someone you trust.

Also - we have a/c throughout the house, it’s a blessing and a must in London. Ignore the naysayers and sleep well forever and ever. 🙂

Gosh that sounds hideously expensive but I live in the midlands and haven’t had any work done for afew years. However by way of comparison we were quoted £75k for a double storey extension with en suite and electrics etc.

Because some people say yes and then it’s worth it.

I’m in a non building trade and we do similar - if somethings not worth the hassle we double the price, so if they say yes it is worth the hassle.

Bit of a con then really! Happy to do it if you're mugging someone off by quoting them double!

Not really… I offer a service at a price. You can choose to take it or leave it. I pay pennies for water out of my tap, it’s 50p for a bottle from the supermarket shelves, £1.50 from the supermarket fridge and £3 from the WH Smith in the train station.

None of that’s a con - it’s the price the retailer is willing to sell at, and you’re free to buy it or not. Same for builders and other services - you can pay the price I’m willing to do it for, or go elsewhere 🤷‍♀️

Yes... but hope they don't get more quotes and pay probably an extra 50k in OPs case. Yeah that's a con to me. I mean if it wasn't they'd tell her that they're not interested in the job but are happy to do it for an extremely inflated price.

@CellophaneFlower do you not understand how the free market works? Demand and supply? Builder sets a price for the supply of his services. OP doesn’t have to accept it - she can take her business elsewhere. This isn’t communism. 🤨 There’s no con.

Well it's not really supply and demand is it... it's just somebody trying it on massively just in case somebody else is stupid enough to not realise they're being taken advantage of.

If this is how you feel, I would strongly recommend you never try and buy anything in a Turkish bazaar or Laotian night market 😊

Any price set by a free market supplier (not just in bazaars) is them “trying it on”.

It might be 18 years ago but we got half a house extension including balcony kitchen and en-suite for 80k. Jesus

I must be that customer one of our quotes was so stupidly high I laughed out loud !
The annoying thing was , we gave the measurements , what we wanted , our postcode , access to the property details .'They could've said "I;m busy/too small/too big a job/ not working in your area" anything .
Not a quote for gold bloody plating the garden !

Seemingly they forgot themselves for a minute and thought they were in a Turkish bazaar 🤷‍♀️

@Cattreesea excellent advice

Op, this isn't building work so I suspect he has got quotes from electricians/plumbers and then added money on top.

You are paying a premium for him to get the trades involved because there isn't much actual work for him. He's them added his salary on top. Always source your own radiators and price them then a builder is likely to get them at trade prices.

Could you manage this yourselves?

No. It’s that I sell my time, and if it’s to do something I really want to do, I might sell my time for less money as the pay off is money and satisfaction. If it’s for something I really don’t want to do, then I have to price it higher to factor in it will actively detract from my satisfaction.

For example, I make skirts. I love making skirts. I charge £10 an hour for making skirts because I love doing it. I can also make trousers, but that involves so much more cutting and I hate cutting. I’m willing to do it, but only if someone pays me £20 an hour. I’ve got enough customers to pay me to make skirts to give me a decent salary, and so I don’t need to accept trouser customers, but I will. John in the next town over loves making trousers and does it for £5 an hour.

I’m not conning the trouser customer, I’m telling them my price for that service. If they want me to do it, £20 an hour makes it worth the stress of the cutting. If they care for a bargain they can shop around and find John, but it’s not for me to direct potential customers to my competitor. I’m still running a business.