Arrrggghhh........extension quotes.....

[Bigtree]

My head is in the shed!!!!!

We've got planning permission for a sizeable two storey extension to our house and have received quotes from 4 builders. All of whom have come recommended to us by people that we trust.

The quotes however differ quite significantly?

They have come in as follows....

£60000
£75000
£118000
And
£135000

I'm really confused that they can be SO different when they are all using the same drawings?

Do you have any suggestions?

 

[noseall]

My guess is that the most expensive one is chancing his arm. Probably got loads of work on and is winging it.

The cheapest one may not have a clue or is going for the "rope 'em in with a cheap quote and hit 'em with the extras" scam.
Only your own research will shed light. An extension we are building at the moment is coming in at £1600 per sq/m. Had we been building it based upon the ubiquitous £1000 p/m benchmark price, then we would have run out of money after the first month.

Every job has its idiosyncrasies and should be priced as such. Speak with your architect and see if he can give you any guidance. Otherwise keep plugging away with builders.

 

[joe-90]

Anyone who has read these forums for a while will know that the most expensive are often the worst. I'd be asking the two cheapest back and asking them tough questions.

 

[^woody^]

Yes, don't dismiss the cheapest out of hand.

The most important thing is to ensure that each is quoting for exactly the same thing. Your plans may not have all the items specified, so the builders use what products they like, and they guess where there is no information.

There can be hundreds of pounds difference in the bricks alone. And is the firm paying tax and insurance for the workers, or are they one man bands and sub contractors? It all adds up.

And you'll need to know what prices the builder will use to value unforeseen work.

You don't want to chose any of the builders to then hear the famous words "Oh, I didn't price for that"

 

[foxhole]

Do you have detailed quotes? there are hundreds of variable and potential problems even with a straight forward build , hard to compare quotes unless they are they have a similar breakdown of costs.You need to go through each quote with each builder and ask questions of each stage. Having problems with my own extension, foundations cost about £3k more due to very wet clay [I'm close to a small stream], and as we are on a corner plot with different levels front side and back just getting the place level cost £3k in grab lorries and skips.Plan was to install a 6m steel to flank to allow a further ground floor extension but due to the poor brickwork we may have to now take down the entire flank as it's falling away when we tested .