Crazy renovation costs 2021

Padoreilly

So bought a mid-terraced Victorian house in Dublin in 2020 and plan a full renovation. Bring existing house up to B1 rating and a small single story extension at rear. We are working with an architect but I was blown away by initial QS costings. 117sqm house with 12sqm extension. UFH with Heat Pump etc and QS coming in at €330k. Downgraded a few things and eliminated works to rear garden and still coming in at €250k with contingency, professional fees etc excluded.

Maybe I totally misjudged what is needed to renovate a house but are construction costs that high?

BryanF

Yes

Alkers

Can you outline the works in a bit more detail?

You could probably bring a house to b with all new windows and doors, attic insulation, new condensing gas boiler, smart heating controls, insulate all external walls. Doable 50k I'd say for most homes -there must be something more significant than just the new rating in your plans.

Extension will be ballpark 2500/m2 in Dublin.

BryanF

Alkers wrote: »

Can you outline the works in a bit more detail?

You could probably bring a house to b with all new windows and doors, attic insulation, new condensing gas boiler, smart heating controls, insulate all external walls. Doable 50k I'd say for most homes -there must be something more significant than just the new rating in your plans.

Extension will be ballpark 2500/m2 in Dublin.

I have to disagree with the 50k for doing up 117m2 Victorian house. Suggest it could easily be Triple/quadruple that..

setanta1000

Unfortunately, in my limited experience, yes, prices are painfully high; certainly in Dublin and Wicklow.

Everything is more expensive, not just the builders rates / cost, but materials, kitchens, painters, etc etc

Padoreilly

To give a bit more detail on project (I wish it could be done for €50k!!)

1. Full gutting of house
2. Rewiring
3. Pluming - UFH downstairs, rads upstairs with Heat Pump
4. New windows. Original 330k included wooden sash windows at front but paired that back to aluminium triple glazed
5. New kitchen, bathroom etc
6. Extension at rear at 9sqm
7. Expect roof to need to be re slated with necessary insulation

I suppose I had in my head that we could get it all done for 200k and we will pair things back but it is our long term home so want to get it right. Will be interesting to see what quotes we get when we actually go to tender

Alkers

BryanF wrote: »

I have to disagree with the 50k for doing up 117m2 Victorian house. Suggest it could easily be Triple/quadruple that..

To clarify I said to bring the BER to a b rating and I asked the scope of the renovations which hadn't been provided at the time.

Alkers

Padoreilly wrote: »

To give a bit more detail on project (I wish it could be done for €50k!!)

1. Full gutting of house
2. Rewiring
3. Pluming - UFH downstairs, rads upstairs with Heat Pump
4. New windows. Original 330k included wooden sash windows at front but paired that back to aluminium triple glazed
5. New kitchen, bathroom etc
6. Extension at rear at 9sqm
7. Expect roof to need to be re slated with necessary insulation

I suppose I had in my head that we could get it all done for 200k and we will pair things back but it is our long term home so want to get it right. Will be interesting to see what quotes we get when we actually go to tender

Get a quote for rads downstairs also, no underfloor with a gas boiler and do a cost benefit analysis.

jonnybravo

Padoreilly wrote: »

To give a bit more detail on project (I wish it could be done for €50k!!)

1. Full gutting of house
2. Rewiring
3. Pluming - UFH downstairs, rads upstairs with Heat Pump
4. New windows. Original 330k included wooden sash windows at front but paired that back to aluminium triple glazed
5. New kitchen, bathroom etc
6. Extension at rear at 9sqm
7. Expect roof to need to be re slated with necessary insulation

I suppose I had in my head that we could get it all done for 200k and we will pair things back but it is our long term home so want to get it right. Will be interesting to see what quotes we get when we actually go to tender

We did something similar in Dublin (130 sq metre house build in the 70s) and it cost us €150k. Probably wasn't all of what you have below but had the below. We had an engineer do our drawings and didn't get a QS or Architect involved.

Rewiring
Repluming including UFH downstairs and rads upstairs (Gas Boiler)
External Insulation plus 150mm insulation under the UFH downstairs (replaced suspended floors)
Extension of 10sq metres (included lots of internal structural steel inbedded into roof to join two rooms together)
Painting
New kitchen & one wardrobe
Three new bathrooms
New internal doors

We didn't have new windors or doors or changing the roof, which I'd say is expensive. We got a builder to do most of it but did stuff like Kitchen, external insulation and buying the fixtures & fittings ourselves.

Padoreilly

jonnybravo wrote: »

We did something similar in Dublin (130 sq metre house build in the 70s) and it cost us €150k. Probably wasn't all of what you have below but had the below. We had an engineer do our drawings and didn't get a QS or Architect involved.

Rewiring
Repluming including UFH downstairs and rads upstairs (Gas Boiler)
External Insulation plus 150mm insulation under the UFH downstairs (replaced suspended floors)
Extension of 10sq metres (included lots of internal structural steel inbedded into roof to join two rooms together)
Painting
New kitchen & one wardrobe
Three new bathrooms
New internal doors

We didn't have new windors or doors or changing the roof, which I'd say is expensive. We got a builder to do most of it but did stuff like Kitchen, external insulation and buying the fixtures & fittings ourselves.

Cheers for that and food for thought on the architect side of things. Out of interest how are you finding UFH with gas boiler?

Xoo2

Surely for that kind of money they provided a detailed breakdown of costs, would be helpful to post here too? Is there any standout item pushing the figure up? How much is the rewiring, how much is the extension work, etc.

jonnybravo

Padoreilly wrote: »

Cheers for that and food for thought on the architect side of things. Out of interest how are you finding UFH with gas boiler?

WE haven't gotten a bill yet but we're finding it good at the moment. We set our heat at 20 downstairs and heating is probably on between 1 & 3 hours per day (obviously colder out now so should go down in summer). Our house is pretty well insulated with external and underfloor insulation.

ebayissues

I'm getting quote for refurb of terraced house. No rewiring, changing boiler, adding new floors with insulation, new bathroom and kitchen. Quotes are between 35/45k.


Expensive

society

Is now a bad time to get renovations done ? Would it be better to wait 12mmths when demand for works increases and costs of materials/labour go down ....or is that too simplistic

Gumbo

society wrote: »

Is now a bad time to get renovations done ? Would it be better to wait 12mmths when demand for works increases and costs of materials/labour go down ....or is that too simplistic

Lots of people said that 12 months ago.
Yet here we are, still in a worldwide pandemic and materials are still rising and labour is harder to get.

You won’t get it done cheaper in 12 months time in my opinion. I’m struggling to get builders for the smaller jobs.

Padoreilly

Gumbo wrote: »

Lots of people said that 12 months ago.
Yet here we are, still in a worldwide pandemic and materials are still rising and labour is harder to get.

You won’t get it done cheaper in 12 months time in my opinion. I’m struggling to get builders for the smaller jobs.

I agree....I actually think prices will go up due to a combination of Covid and Brexit.

ml100

Padoreilly wrote: »

I agree....I actually think prices will go up due to a combination of Covid and Brexit.

That's the way it is in Ireland, prices will continue to rise until be have another crash and they will collapse then.

City Eagle

I understand that’s the case

Shortages of key materials and price increases for insulation etc

Tefral

I was a QS over a job exactly like this recently. Costs were similar to what the OP Described.

muffler

Tefral wrote: »

I was a QS over a job exactly like this recently. Costs were similar to what the OP Described.

Maybe it was yourself that prepared the BOQ

society4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058151132/crazy-renovation-costs-2021

Did you get a reasonable quote in the end …looking at doing similar work but wondering are costs still crazy !

fliball123

Dont get fooled by builders - here is the SCSI from September 2022 when prices of raw materials were higher than they are now.

https://scsi.ie/consumer/build/calculator/

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120546012#Comment_120546012

That’s of zero use if you can’t get a builder to do the work at those prices.

Builders charge what they can get, not what some website says they should be charging.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120546062#Comment_120546062

Well with over 40k more workers working in construction game in 2022 thats a 31.4% increase of workers from the start of the year things are opening up I can see that from my own personal experience and raw material prices are down also with the PMIs and outputs in construction both showing a different story from what your painting the tide has changed a lot of would be customers in the market for an extension have been priced out of it by interest rates, gouging by builders and from the cost of living crisis.

So anyone looking to get a job done don't just accept the first quote the SCSI site I quoted is one of the industry standards and should be looked at and not what a builder tells you as he walks into your house with his spurs and Stetson giving the usual "ahh the war in Ukraine blah the cost of raw materials blah blah" Its squeaky bum time for a lot of construction companies already there are a real ramp up in liquidations in the SME sector and the construction game is not immune. This time last year I could only get one construction company out to quote , this year 6 and the lowest quote is 15% lower than last years quote. Any quote anyone out there is getting compare to SCSI and tell the builder that you wont be going ahead until they lower the price and make sure to have at least 3+ quotes and if you are still not happy wait it out. Nothing like another 3 interest rate hikes coming before July to drain another high % of would be extension customers from this market. Builders will either have to compete or hit the wall.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/12/16/court-appoints-provisional-liquidator-to-dublin-construction-firm/

https://www.breakingnews.ie/business/construction-firm-building-hundreds-of-social-housing-units-goes-into-examinership-1393654.html

https://www2.deloitte.com/ie/en/pages/finance/articles/29-percent-increase-in-insolvencies-year-on-year.html

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/12/07/news/derry_building_firm_ams_goes_into_administration-2932188/

CSO figures for construction workers increase

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-lfs/labourforcesurveyquarter22022/employment/#:~:text=The%20Accommodation%20%26%20Food%20Services%20sector,18%2C900%20from%20Quarter%202%202019

Construction PMIs and construction outputs are both down

https://tradingeconomics.com/ireland/construction-output

https://tradingeconomics.com/ireland/construction-pmi

society4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/115971594#Comment_115971594

Please could you pm me the name of your builder. thanks

barnabyjones77

How did you get on?