~ Building a House in 2020 ~

dubrov · 06-04-2021 07:59PM

kevpatts wrote: »

What would you recommend are my next steps?

Change the spec or walk away

roosterman71 · 06-04-2021 09:00PM

kevpatts wrote: »

Hey all, first time here.

I just got a quote from a QS for building a 125 sqm passive house in Dublin and it blew me away. It also seems much higher than anything I've seen here!

So it is an unusual site, it's living room, kitchen, study bathroom and utility room on the ground floor and 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs (upper floor is a lot smaller footprint. It's shared like this cause of tree roots and shadow casting. The living room is on posts due to tree roots.

Anyway, to the meaty bit, I was quoted over €550k for the build including site costs, kitchen, soft furnishings, preliminaries & insurances, etc., not including architects fees or VAT. Coming in about €700k all in, over €5,600/sqm! This seems crazy to me but the architect says this QS is normally pretty accurate.

What would you recommend are my next steps?

Prices for everything has gone through the roof. Materials up by 40% in some places. Now really isn't the time to be starting a build unfortunately

ECO_Mental · 06-04-2021 09:36PM

kevpatts wrote: »

Hey all, first time here.

I just got a quote from a QS for building a 125 sqm passive house in Dublin and it blew me away. It also seems much higher than anything I've seen here!

So it is an unusual site, it's living room, kitchen, study bathroom and utility room on the ground floor and 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs (upper floor is a lot smaller footprint. It's shared like this cause of tree roots and shadow casting. The living room is on posts due to tree roots.

Anyway, to the meaty bit, I was quoted over €550k for the build including site costs, kitchen, soft furnishings, preliminaries & insurances, etc., not including architects fees or VAT. Coming in about €700k all in, over €5,600/sqm! This seems crazy to me but the architect says this QS is normally pretty accurate.

What would you recommend are my next steps?

Just a quick question do you mean this is the building costs or is this the price of the land. Because that would explain a lot..

kevpatts · 06-04-2021 09:58PM

ECO_Mental wrote: »

Just a quick question do you mean this is the building costs or is this the price of the land. Because that would explain a lot..

Land price not included. Parents garden.

Gumbo · 06-04-2021 10:10PM

kevpatts wrote: »

Hey all, first time here.

I just got a quote from a QS for building a 125 sqm passive house in Dublin and it blew me away. It also seems much higher than anything I've seen here!

So it is an unusual site, it's living room, kitchen, study bathroom and utility room on the ground floor and 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs (upper floor is a lot smaller footprint. It's shared like this cause of tree roots and shadow casting. The living room is on posts due to tree roots.

Anyway, to the meaty bit, I was quoted over €550k for the build including site costs, kitchen, soft furnishings, preliminaries & insurances, etc., not including architects fees or VAT. Coming in about €700k all in, over €5,600/sqm! This seems crazy to me but the architect says this QS is normally pretty accurate.

What would you recommend are my next steps?

Where are you based?
Could be the wealth tax?

ECO_Mental · 06-04-2021 10:20PM

kevpatts wrote: »

Hey all, first time here.

I just got a quote from a QS for building a 125 sqm passive house in Dublin and it blew me away. It also seems much higher than anything I've seen here!

So it is an unusual site, it's living room, kitchen, study bathroom and utility room on the ground floor and 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs (upper floor is a lot smaller footprint. It's shared like this cause of tree roots and shadow casting. The living room is on posts due to tree roots.

Anyway, to the meaty bit, I was quoted over €550k for the build including site costs, kitchen, soft furnishings, preliminaries & insurances, etc., not including architects fees or VAT. Coming in about €700k all in, over €5,600/sqm! This seems crazy to me but the architect says this QS is normally pretty accurate.

What would you recommend are my next steps?

Mmmm....seems a bit high but a couple of thoughts, passive house so that's a bit higher spec than normal, the design also seems a bit more high spec with the living room on posts. Looks like its tight site, is it in Dublin city with difficult access. I see people are being charged 250-300k for extensions on here so builders can pick and choose at the moment. You are also building in the most expensive locations in Ireland (in not Europe..atm)

kevpatts · 07-04-2021 09:30PM

ECO_Mental wrote: »

Mmmm....seems a bit high but a couple of thoughts, passive house so that's a bit higher spec than normal, the design also seems a bit more high spec with the living room on posts. Looks like its tight site, is it in Dublin city with difficult access. I see people are being charged 250-300k for extensions on here so builders can pick and choose at the moment. You are also building in the most expensive locations in Ireland (in not Europe..atm)

Yeah, gotta get a crew over from Germany to build it instead!

Frozen Veg · 07-04-2021 09:32PM

roosterman71 wrote: »

Prices for everything has gone through the roof. Materials up by 40% in some places. Now really isn't the time to be starting a build unfortunately

What are people supposed to do? Wait two years for prices to come down a bit?

Frozen Veg · 07-04-2021 09:33PM

For those that have already agreed a price with a builder, are you expecting the builder to try to increase the contract price or are you expecting them to honour the agreed price.

roosterman71 · 07-04-2021 09:35PM

Frozen Veg wrote: »

What are people supposed to do? Wait two years for prices to come down a bit?

That's up to the proposed owner. I know I can't handle a 40% price increase so I've had to stop.

Frozen Veg · 07-04-2021 09:44PM

roosterman71 wrote: »

That's up to the proposed owner. I know I can't handle a 40% price increase so I've had to stop.

Hard to know. Prices might never come back to where they were.

L-M · 07-04-2021 10:29PM

Frozen Veg wrote: »

For those that have already agreed a price with a builder, are you expecting the builder to try to increase the contract price or are you expecting them to honour the agreed price.

Our builder rang us to say insulation was going up and basically we had to suffer the cost of it, it hadn’t actually gone up when he rang so we bought it all and have it stored.

That obviously won’t suit everyone. But I’m hearing stories of everything going up in price. Concrete, steel etc etc etc

We have to build now as we can’t wait for the crystal ball stuff of are pricing going to go up or down

Gumbo · 08-04-2021 12:20AM

Frozen Veg wrote: »

For those that have already agreed a price with a builder, are you expecting the builder to try to increase the contract price or are you expecting them to honour the agreed price.

It’s happening across the board in all industries!
Going back to basics, newspapers ads have gone up in the last 12 months for planning applications. Printing costs have risen too.

Frozen Veg · 08-04-2021 06:06AM

L-M wrote: »

Our builder rang us to say insulation was going up and basically we had to suffer the cost of it, it hadn’t actually gone up when he rang so we bought it all and have it stored.

That obviously won’t suit everyone. But I’m hearing stories of everything going up in price. Concrete, steel etc etc etc

We have to build now as we can’t wait for the crystal ball stuff of are pricing going to go up or down

When a builder/contractor was pricing a job, should they not have a factored in potential price increases for COVID and Brexit.

For example, say a builder had the job priced and contract agreed with client at €450k, I'm not sure it's fair on the client to be coming back at this stage now saying the price will be €475k due to materials price increases.

L-M · 08-04-2021 08:16AM

Frozen Veg wrote: »

When a builder/contractor was pricing a job, should they not have a factored in potential price increases for COVID and Brexit.

For example, say a builder had the job priced and contract agreed with client at €450k, I'm not sure it's fair on the client to be coming back at this stage now saying the price will be €475k due to materials price increases.

Yeah I don’t know. I’m doing a bit of a hybrid between a self build and contractor so maybe that has played a bit as I’ve gotten fairly solid breakdown of costs from day one.

P2C · 08-04-2021 08:27AM

If you build a well detailed airtight, super insulated house and pay attention to detail around cold bridging your oil bill or any heating system costs will be quite low especially if south facing . I done that ten years ago. I burn approx 900 lt of kero per year for a 200 sq/ m house. Less than €600 every year. I do have solar water which means no oil for some part of the year. If I was to do it again I would build to passive design standard and negate the requirement for a expensive heating system. The mantra I followed was build airtight and insulate right. My house would get a crap BER as Oil is dirty but sure ten years ago our electricity wasn’t as clean as it is today.

keno-daytrader wrote: »

We just built ourselves and are very pleased at how efficient the A2W unit is and has performed. UFH everywhere, house set at 21.5, bedrooms 19.5, floor space 215sqm.

On average this winter from Nov to end of Feb we spent 13 euros/month on hot water and 31 euros/month for heat.

If you insulate properly, eliminate cold bridging and aim for Airtightness of 1 ach I think heat pumps are the only way to go in our climate.

Thinking of going back to oil, sends chills up my spine

dh1985 · 10-04-2021 08:56AM

P2C wrote: »

If you build a well detailed airtight, super insulated house and pay attention to detail around cold bridging your oil bill or any heating system costs will be quite low especially if south facing . I done that ten years ago. I burn approx 900 lt of kero per year for a 200 sq/ m house. Less than €600 every year. I do have solar water which means no oil for some part of the year. If I was to do it again I would build to passive design standard and negate the requirement for a expensive heating system. The mantra I followed was build airtight and insulate right. My house would get a crap BER as Oil is dirty but sure ten years ago our electricity wasn’t as clean as it is today.

Would have to agree with this here. I have a 220sqm house running solely on oil, well insulated and 0.6 ach value. Get a decent amount of solar gain during the year. Used 800 litres of oil in the past twelve months for b0th heating and hot water. No solar panels here. Worked out less than 400e to heat house last year albeit oil was cheap. House was always comfortable as wife was wfh with two young kids. Plumbing for air to water was 11k more than for oil. Cant see the payback with A2W. If the house is well insulated you would heat them with a candle. I would imagine in a few years time the horn will be gone off lads for A2W when they realise it's the insulation that is the main player in low energy costs and not the A2W unit.

L-M · 11-04-2021 10:03PM

Problem is I don’t think we have a choice really for the BER and OIL is going to be a fuel of the past some day.

At least the Air to water could be ran off renewal energy

keno-daytrader · 13-04-2021 05:48PM

dh1985 wrote: »

Would have to agree with this here. I have a 220sqm house running solely on oil, well insulated and 0.6 ach value. Get a decent amount of solar gain during the year. Used 800 litres of oil in the past twelve months for b0th heating and hot water. No solar panels here. Worked out less than 400e to heat house last year albeit oil was cheap. House was always comfortable as wife was wfh with two young kids. Plumbing for air to water was 11k more than for oil. Cant see the payback with A2W. If the house is well insulated you would heat them with a candle. I would imagine in a few years time the horn will be gone off lads for A2W when they realise it's the insulation that is the main player in low energy costs and not the A2W unit.

You were quoted 11k for running underfloor piping and manifolds? :eek:

dh1985 · 13-04-2021 07:59PM

keno-daytrader wrote: »

You were quoted 11k for running underfloor piping and manifolds? :eek:

No I was quoted 11k more to fully plumb the house using A2W over oil setup. The unit alone was 12k so that was the difference

P2C · 17-04-2021 08:55PM

The BER awards people who spend a fortune on expensive technology adding to the overall costs of building. Add the cost of a solar PV to run a heat pump and the payback will be forever. Passive built homes I recall reading score less in the BER test due to not using heat pumps and other tech. I know I would rather have a house that’s costs minimal amt of money to run than having a A1 rated house and a big mortgage. In 2009 when I built my house a 150 cavity wasn’t the norm and I put another 50 mm on the inside. (200 mm wall insulation) . I also done a airtight house. The block layers were laughing at me . It’s the standard now. I am raging that I didn’t go to 300 plus as you only get one chance to do it right. Fabric first, build airtight and insulate right.

L-M wrote: »

Problem is I don’t think we have a choice really for the BER and OIL is going to be a fuel of the past some day.

At least the Air to water could be ran off renewal energy

L-M · 17-04-2021 09:24PM

Surely the cost of that much insulation and presumably oil heating versus less insulation and running air to water is comparable on the long run

BryanF · 17-04-2021 09:58PM

L-M wrote: »

Surely the cost of that much insulation and presumably oil heating versus less insulation and running air to water is comparable on the long run

Can you try again?

+1 with P2C ‘fabric first’

Ikozma · 06-02-2022 01:58PM

Are there any sites with plans with estimated build costs for each house plan?

tadgho · 15-03-2022 02:36PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118590199#Comment_118590199

-snip- In response to this, can anyone offer their opinion on whether the prices listed for these concrete modular homes are more or less in line with what one would expect to pay for the same house in a traditional build? Are they cheaper/dearer than a typical traditional type build? If you click on each design on link it gives cost. I suppose speed of construction is the main attraction with the modular style house.

Jim_bop · 17-03-2022 05:06PM

You'd have to make sure you're comparing apples with apples, aka devil is in the detail. The latest ready reckoned for self build is a staggering 200 per square ft. and rising. Unless something changes, it's going to become prohibitive for most at those prices.

ppn · 02-05-2022 12:27AM

Question: is the A2W and UF heating all you need? Presune the solar or pv is optional after that once the air tightness is good?

Selfbuilder here aswell. Thanks

ppn · 02-05-2022 01:23AM

Has anyone used tile effect cladding or seamlap for a selfbuild?

MacDanger · 09-08-2022 11:19AM

Have two quotes in for a ~200sqm new build house from a main contractor, coming in at between 1650-1950/sqm for builders finish so that doesn't include kitchen, flooring, etc. This is in the northwest

Anyone have any estimate of what we'd save by going without a main contractor? 80k? Obviously there's a lot of extra hassle involved and it would take a good bit longer but those sort of quotes are making the build unaffordable.

SodiumCooled · 10-08-2022 02:00PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119448609#Comment_119448609

Hi, do you have any breakdown of the stages from the contractor quote? As I have mentioned on other threads I am in the middle of a self build (self managed) at the moment. We are targeting around 1600 euro/sqm finished (well at least finished enough to move in so kitchen, utility, a few bedrooms etc). We are a bit bigger at 265 sqm and going much if anything above this figure will begin to get unaffordable fast.

The reason I ask on the cost break down is while our overall cost per sq/m is an (educated) estimate I now have pretty much exact costs as far as wall plate level since we are approaching this now so if you had a break down of ground works, foundation, blockwork etc we could compare to see what sort of difference there is (per sq/m to account for size difference).

Aside from overall savings from cutting out the middle man of the contractor there have been a few areas I have definitely saved a few thousand by being so involved and being able to source better pricing even with no apparent alternative or push back on the engineer for more cost effective solutions. If a contractor was doing the work I doubt I would have any visibility on this.

~ Building a House in 2020 ~

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