Clearing house before renovation

Hi guys,

We just got our planning permission for a renovation and extension of a 1970s house. We are going to tender this week and expect work to start at the end of September.

I currently have some time off and was wondering if there is any value in me clearing out the house properly before builders come in?

I mean pulling up all the carpets, removing skirting and architrave, door saddles, removing wall paper (walls are being replastered so want to get rid of paper), pulling out all old lighting fixtures, removing doors, stripping timber cladding etc?

Also, if I do the above, should I get a skip and dump it myself or would the builder's get better rates on skips etc? They are demolishing internal walls and an entire garage so they will be removing lots of skips of rubble anyway.

Any guidance would be great as I don't want to do loads of work unless it is worth my while financially to do so.

Thanks in advance.

kollegeknight

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Hi guys,

We just got our planning permission for a renovation and extension of a 1970s house. We are going to tender this week and expect work to start at the end of September.

I currently have some time off and was wondering if there is any value in me clearing out the house properly before builders come in?

I mean pulling up all the carpets, removing skirting and architrave, door saddles, removing wall paper (walls are being replastered so want to get rid of paper), pulling out all old lighting fixtures, removing doors, stripping timber cladding etc?

Also, if I do the above, should I get a skip and dump it myself or would the builder's get better rates on skips etc? They are demolishing internal walls and an entire garage so they will be removing lots of skips of rubble anyway.

Any guidance would be great as I don't want to do loads of work unless it is worth my while financially to do so.

Thanks in advance.

I suppose it depends on what you have included in the tender- if they have the clearing/demolition included, you are only saving them Labour.

Re rental of skips, our builder had let us use his name at companies to get his rate, once we paid out front for things.

newbie2

We were in the same position last year. I decided to leave it to the builder to do and head off to vegas for a week!


RE the replastering and stripping of wallpaper. Because we were re-wiring and re-plumbing, it was decided that it was quicker and cheaper to just pull the existing plasterboard (incl wallpaper) down and replace with new. So be aware that any work you do off your own bat - may not be needed doing as soon as the builders get in.


TBH, it doesn't cost that much for a labourer to pull a carpet up and throw in a skip that you'll be paying for anyway.

kollegeknight

kollegeknight wrote: »

I suppose it depends on what you have included in the tender- if they have the clearing/demolition included, you are only saving them Labour.

Re rental of skips, our builder had let us use his name at companies to get his rate, once we paid out front for things.

My engineer is acting as project manager and he said any work I do myself can be taken off the tender. We haven't got any quotes back yet so not sure what they would charge for it but a friend did a similar job recently and was charged 200e for stripping of carpets.

We are demolishing the side garage so I would probably just fire any rubble into the garage instead of disposing of it myself. But would be happy to get rid of it if it saved us money.

newbie2

newbie2 wrote: »

We were in the same position last year. I decided to leave it to the builder to do and head off to vegas for a week!


RE the replastering and stripping of wallpaper. Because we were re-wiring and re-plumbing, it was decided that it was quicker and cheaper to just pull the existing plasterboard (incl wallpaper) down and replace with new. So be aware that any work you do off your own bat - may not be needed doing as soon as the builders get in.


TBH, it doesn't cost that much for a labourer to pull a carpet up and throw in a skip that you'll be paying for anyway.

Thanks. Yeah, I am only going to strip the wallpaper off the walls that I know are not being reboarded or plastered. We're rewiring and replumbing too.

Went through some of the costs from a job my friend did and they know how to charge for small jobs like that. As I said, I would rather do it myself than pay a labourer over the odds for it.