Builder, Quantity Surveyor or Architect?

OREGATO

Hey folks, first time posting on here, hope it's the correct place.

We're thinking of moving house at the moment, our current place is sale agreed and we're looking at a property that needs a lot of work: extension out the rear, extending upstairs by building over the garage, all existing rooms would need to be redone, new wiring, windows, new kitchen, bathrooms and possibly plumbing work too.

We want to get a rough estimate for this work before we bid on the property but not sure where to begin. Would a builder, QS or architect be the right first step?

What we're thinking is that we would want to get someone to view the property with us, we'll outline roughly what we'd like to get done and based on their previous experience, they could provide us with a rough estimate to costs for all the work. If numbers work out, we'd plan to bid on the house and if accepted, get the same person to draw up more detailed costs/plans etc for the work.

We're obviously happy to pay someone for all this (including the initial rough estimate) and know that a detailed plan won't be cheap but wanted to see if anyone has any experience with this process or is in the trade and would be able to help?

House in question is located in South Dublin.

Thanks for reading!

Kevhog1988

Qs would give a good estimate id say. Happy to give you a basic pointer if you want to pm me. (Foc I'm not touting/attempting to tout for work mods)

OREGATO

Thanks Kev, really appreciate it, I’ve sent you a PM there. Let me know if you received it.

Calahonda52

200k should get a fair bit done, if required tile and other finishes are top notch then 230+

OREGATO

Calahonda52 wrote: »

200k should get a fair bit done, if required tile and other finishes are top notch then 230+

Thanks for the reply, that's sort of the ballpark we are thinking but just don't want to get into a situation of buying the property and then realising it will actually cost 50% more than what we think.

My question is how do I validate that €200k - €250k is a safe and reliable budget for the project?

BryanF

Hire a qs

com1

Interesting... will a qs estimate costs without plans? Maybe so as it looks like one replied in thread.

I would have thought a builder would be best to give a general estimate/ballpark.

OREGATO

Just to update this thread and for anyone else who might be interested, we ended up talking to an architect and paid him to come on site to take a look at the property. Money well spent IMO as he was able to give us a good idea of the work and what we could potentially do with the space.
Obviously it was very high level and would depend on numerous factors such as finish, builder etc but it really helped us to understand how much it could potentially cost and where we go from here.