Extension budget

EasyBoy1974

hey

I was wondering if anyone could help me determine a ballpark figure for extending my house for budgeting purposes. Basically it's to knock out the existing kitchen (about 8ft X 6ft) and build an extension 16ft X 16ft to contain batchroom, kitchen and small utlility space. the total floor spake should be around 256 sqft. it's all on one storey, and all to the rear of the house. i'll be looking for the builder to put in a small patio to the rear also.

can anyone give any ideas of approximate cost - sorry if this has been covered already.

Cheers

Kashkai

Hi EB,

I'm currently adding on about 1,300 sq ft to my bungalow at the moment.

The first bit of advice I'd give you is to get at least three different quotes for the job. The quotes I received ranged from €159,000 to €261,000 for the same job!!! I'm glad I didn't go with the first quote I received, i.e. €261k.

The general rule of thumb is that a builder charges by the square foot for the work. This price includes all foundations, blockwork, roofing, electrics, plumbing, plastering etc. The rate they charge per square foot depends on where you live in the country with Dublin being the dearest and the west being cheapest. I'm paying about €122 per sq. ft. but you can pay as much as €200 or as little as €100 depending where you live and how big the job is. Generally, the bigger the job, the more the economics of scale comes into things, i.e. its as cheap to get 1,000 blocks delivered as its is to get 500 etc.

Make sure the builder you hire has references or has been referred by a friend, neighbour, colleague etc as this is the best way to get someone reliable. There are dozens of cowboys out there. Also ask to see his insurance in case something goes wrong. If he's legit, he won't have a problem providing these.

Make sure you are certain what you want from the job, and also ensure that the builder has the same "vision" of the final plan as you because it's expensive to make changes after work has commenced.

Finally, you should check with the local council to ensure that you don't need planning permission for the extension. The size you quoted suggests that it is exempted development, but there's no harm in making sure.

EasyBoy1974

Thanks Dave - I appreciate all the advice. Am kond of nervous given the scope and cost of this project!

masterK

I'd go further than getting 3 quotes, I'd get 8 or 9 builders up and give them plans, you'll be doing well if you get 3-4 quotes from them and you can be sure at least 1 or 2 will be rediculous.

I'm in the same process at the moment and it's been a very trying experience dealing with builders who tell you they'll get back to you and you never hear from them again, I got 8 builders up, 3 have came back with prices, one is due to come back by the end of the week. Of the 3 prices I got, 1 was OK, 1 was dear and the other was just some chancer trying to make a killing.

Kashkai

What's the point in going to the trouble of chasing after 8 or 9 builders?

Ask friends or colleagues if they could recommend a builder as this is by far a better method than going through the yellow pages. After all, a friend is not likely to recommend a cowboy builder. If you know someone who has had some building work done recently, ask them what they thought of the builder and if possible, see the "finished product".

By using this method, I got the three quotes for my extension. The guy who quoted €261k was highly recommended but I wasn't going to give him over a hundred grand more than the cheapest quote I got (and he was recommended as well!!!)

And if a builder is recommended to you, it follows that he's also reliable in that he'll turn up when he's supposed to. However, you have to allow for the fact that nearly all builders have more than one job on the go at any one time and you won't see them on your job every day. Part and parcel of the pain involved in extending the house.

Finally, as most SSIA's will be maturing in 2007, I'd get cracking on the work now as you can bet the building trade will be upping their prices to take a slice of your (and everyone else's) hard earned SSIA cash.

Dave

Neverends

I agree that its only worth getting quotes from builders who your friends have recommended. We've just done an extension and I've met many builders and tradesmen in the process and the general attitude seems to be that they just won't bother quoting for jobs unless they've been referred by a previous client. They reckon they won't get the business unless they're been referred so don't want to waste their time. I don't think its wise to give a large project to someone you know little about anyway.

I'm afraid we had a terrible time getting the job going - many builders tend to not be very thorough in quoting for the job and it took us ages to get comparable quotes from a few different people. I would recommend hiring a quantity surveyor and possibly architect as well to help with this. Unless you know a lot more than we did it is soooooo hard to handle it yourself and it will take a toll. QS will itemise every expense and make sure its reasonable.

Then honestly its hard to hold them to the budget unless you agree that every deviation is to be agreed before work can proceed and in reality this would cause many delays. Its extremely difficult to predict every expense at the outset especially if you're extending an old house and the builders can't predict what problems they'll enter when the start. We went loads over budget and I think most people do. If you have a good architect whos really on top of things on a daily basis then you might have more luck with keeping project and budget on track.

Finally, not necessarily best to go for lowest quote obviously. I'd say, excepting a few lunatic high quoters, most builders will cost about the same and the ones who quote low initially will probably make up for it in unavoidable overruns. In retrospect I'd go for the guy with the best references in the beginning.

Are you moving out for the duration? Very hard to live thorugh it. We tried and had to move out halfway pushing up the costs a lot.

Kashkai

Neverends is right - you should move out if possible. The muck and filth that building works creates has to be seen to be believed.

If you are ripping apart the kitchen, you won't be able to cook, eat and keep the place clean with the mess that will be inevitable. The builder will also have to move the services such as water, wastewater, ESB, Gas etc so you won't have the use of the kitchen for a number of weeks.

My brother got a similar job to yours done to his kitchen and the place was a bombsite. I've young kids and so I plan to get out for a couple of months and only move back in when the job is finished.