Daily rate or fixed quote on loft conversion?

[datadiyer]

That's what I was thinking having just done it myself... that's a 200KG steel - you'll need a crane or ask your SE to design a two part beam (have you factored SE costs). Also consider party wall act costs. Building regulations fees. Toilet hire?

Thanks Garyo,
The en-suite is above existing bathroom so all services ideally located. Yes, I may need a crane. I've had plans drawn up, got planning certificate (it's a PD), also had an SE to specify steel and paid all £430 building regs so ready to go. There aren't any party wall costs as far as I can see. I just got my neighbour to sign the form I downloaded from .gov website. Didn't consider toilet hire TBH. Hopefully they'll be sweating so much they'll have nothing to ****.
I've been trying to think of all negatives but my gut is saying pay daily rate as opposed to over-inflated fixed price. If unforseen's appear then i'll just have to suck it up. I still think daily rate is the way to go. Alternatively, if I take a couple of grand either side of £9k labour, do I chance that materials come to £23k-£27k?
I've considered a realistic contract (i.e no pay on rainy days) so gotta be the way to go surely?

 

[datadiyer]

I like friends like you. What you doing for the next two weeks?

I'll re-phrase my comment to "In all seriousness, daywork is a licence to make money for the unscrupulous".

Hey Woody, I was here first, Noseall, what you doing for next 6 weeks, lol.

 

[garyo]

do I chance that materials come to £23k-£27k?

I'm in the middle of a 2 storey extension with five steels. 40 square metres floor area, and my materials are looking like they'll come in at around £14k.

As others have suggested, I think the place you'll have to be careful is where things are neither materials nor labour, such as

• crane hire, skip hire...
• "we don't do plastering... £800 bill"
• "we don't do roofing... £2000 bill"
• "we don't do electrics... etc

It'll come down to trust and hard work in the end. Do you have a definitive list of their skills, and which parts will be subbed out, and how much those parts will cost?

 

[noseall]

Thanks Garyo,

You're welcome.

 

[chappers]

It all sounds good but realise you need to make sure you keep your end of the bargain. I've done a few labour only jobs in the past to try and help people on tight budgets out, because as you say it works out cheaper and in theory takes some of the pressure off me too. But in all honesty I don't really like it. It nearly always ends up at some stage where I end up sourcing/fetching materials or negotiating prices on behalf of the client. Causing jobs to overrun etc. It's not all just about the money and not having to worry if I'm sat around waiting for materials. I have other work scheduled in to, just my opinion but generally it doesn't work out.
Personally I would go back to the person that recommended them and ask those questions you didn't ask previously, that may give you the re-assurance you need.

 

[23vc]

I'm in the middle of a 2 storey extension with five steels. 40 square metres floor area, and my materials are looking like they'll come in at around £14k.

Is that including fit out or just the shell? Windows, doors? I've spent 13k on mine so far on demolition, concrete, skips grabs, and building the shell including the roof. So sounds like you're doing better than me for material cost , mines not much bigger, 50m ish

Edit: meant to say mines only half built -still got the back single storey to do at more cost

 

[pilsbury]

A fixed price is a safe price (probably). Day rate may be cheaper as long as they work a full hard day. If the day rate blokes stack up (recommendation, seeing their previous work) and you have priced up your materials solidly including all extras (including hiring equipment), Why not approach the day rate blokes and suggest a fixed price? If they say 6 weeks and that costs £9k, tell them there is a £10k max budget. They get that whether they finish in 5 weeks or if it takes them 20 weeks. Gives them an incentive to work hard and get the job done and end up in pocket. Also leaves you safe if they run over.

Price for a loft conversion? My single storey extension (45m2) materials coming in at £14k - including windows, doors, roof lights...... clearly a lot of concrete in that..... could you say that is equivalent to your steels?

 

[garyo]

Is that including fit out or just the shell? Windows, doors? I've spent 13k on mine so far on demolition, concrete, skips grabs, and building the shell including the roof. So sounds like you're doing better than me for material cost , mines not much bigger, 50m ish

Yes that's all-in, but.... Mine's a chalet bungalow so my first floor is all in the roof, which probably makes it comparatively cheaper. We've got two bedrooms going in upstairs, neither of which have en-suite so that keeps it simple.

Downstairs was meant to be an open plan lounge/dining room area, so my costs are planned in for that. However, the wife made a late decision 2 months ago to move the kitchen from the old house in to the back of the new extension, so actually that will add another £5k I expect.

As we've discussed on here before, you can make your materials cheaper by throwing man-hours at them - either shopping around or buying/collecting second hand. All of my doors & windows are high quality used items. I've just collected 700 Marley Anglias for £200, and conveniently ignore the 4 hours it took to ferry them back to my house

 

[garyo]

You're welcome.

I stand on the shoulders of giants!

 

[23vc]

I've just collected 700 Marley Anglias for £200, and conveniently ignore the 4 hours it took to ferry them back to my house

No idea how you managed that, but fair play to you. I drew a blank with most of my local merchants and ended up paying Travis Perkins about £1 a tile for 500. They're not even nice tiles ...

 

[big-all]

Hi Chappers,
I don't work and am familiar with most building materials/fixings etc so I would be on site all the time so can fetch materials on demand. Really good local merchants around me also with next day, sometimes same day delivery. The chippies work with electrics/plumbers/plasterers etc so that's covered. I know it can be a bit of a gamble but I suppose if we agree firmly on a contract, it could financially beneficial.

so you have to factor in the cost off other trades who may cost far more per day indeed iff you have say 12 from varied trades working on site for a week that could be 10kplus for a week

 

[datadiyer]

A fixed price is a safe price (probably). Day rate may be cheaper as long as they work a full hard day. If the day rate blokes stack up (recommendation, seeing their previous work) and you have priced up your materials solidly including all extras (including hiring equipment), Why not approach the day rate blokes and suggest a fixed price? If they say 6 weeks and that costs £9k, tell them there is a £10k max budget. They get that whether they finish in 5 weeks or if it takes them 20 weeks. Gives them an incentive to work hard and get the job done and end up in pocket. Also leaves you safe if they run over.

Price for a loft conversion? My single storey extension (45m2) materials coming in at £14k - including windows, doors, roof lights...... clearly a lot of concrete in that..... could you say that is equivalent to your steels?

Thanks Pilbury, yeah, I see your suggestion Pilsbury, but that won't account for any unforseen's. I'm realistic that, for example, the brickwork isn't stable enough to take the RSJ's. This would obviously cost more, but i'm ok about that prospect as it wouldn't be the builders fault. Then again it go swimmingly (unlikely I know), but they may even do it in 4-5 weeks. The initial reason for proposing a daily rate is to account for the unforeseeables. Also, if I give them the incentive for an early finish, maybe I would risk them doing a hap-hazard job in half the time if they are going to get the same amount of cash. Saying that, I do trust these lads . The guy who introduced them to me is a family friend and has worked with these guys who he says are fantastic workmen. And he's worked with a lot of tradesmen over the years. I've been looking at contract templates online so I think as long as I get that right, I should be ok.

 

[datadiyer]

so you have to factor in the cost off other trades who may cost far more per day indeed iff you have say 12 from varied trades working on site for a week that could be 10kplus for a week

Thanks Big-all,
Yeah, that would be a worry TBH. I'm thinking of having them do the loft without the plaster finish. I know how long plstering it all can take, and if I have them hanging around as well, it'll be a bit unnerving. I know of a few plasterers used by friends who i'm sure would work for £150 a day.

 

[datadiyer]

Thanks for all your input lads, greatly appreciated. You've given me plenty to think about, but I think I will take the plunge and go for the daily rate option. I will draft a contract to finish it to a plasterboard finish, no en-suite and no rainy day pay, etc. We were ready to go as early as next week. I had the scaffolding provisionally booked, but told today that chippies are on another job and won't be ready for a few weeks. In which case, i'll tie them down for a start in April next year. Forgot to say, we had a quote of £40k also. I thought this was a ridiculous amount. Hence the daily rate sounds even more appealing. I'll let you all know how I get on. Oh yes, and I will take on board the mention of toilet hire. Although what happened to buck it and chuck it? Well not off a 3rd floor elevation maybe.

 

[cjard]

How did you get from "starting in two weeks" to they need a couple of weeks to finish another job, so they'll start in April 2018"?

Over the time on my place I've tended to hire guys on price for the first job they did and assessed how they worked, then asked them to work on day rate if they're good. Yes, you could cynically say that on day rate they're going to take their time, versus price rate everything is a rush but I tended not to find that- people have a rate that they work at that suits their stamina, skill and speed of thinking, and it seems to become a habit. I haven't noticed my trades work at a significantly different rate based on how they get paid and day for the good guys seems to work out cheaper, because one thing all the price quotes include is a can-o-worms amount. My recent jobs have all been new builds, so very few cans of worms

Perhaps you can get these guys to do a smaller job first that is separate to the loft conversion, like a kitchen install. Either pay mode, doesn't matter, just to get an idea of accuracy of time estimate, pace and quality of work etc. It also gets them used to working with you, which will likely help things along for bigger jobs unless you're a complete pain in the arse to work with in which case they can adjust their approach accordingly
ps; clients are generally a pain in the arse, and it can't be helped. They will always care a little too much about stuff that doesn't really matter, and I'm no exception - I asked the tiler to make sure he didn't lay any tiles with the same pattern (it was some pseudo marble thing but there was only about 16 different variations on the theme) within 3 tiles of each other, though if he was stuck he could rotate it so long as it was in a different row/column and he said no one has ever asked him that.. I had to ask him to pull a few off before he got the hang of it, but his grumbling at the start of the job had, come the end, turned into honest admission of what he thought were a couple of mistakes in placing identical tiles too close.

I left him to his own devices on randomising the next set of tiles he laid (some stupid hexagon shaped ones that are 8 hexagons stuck together in an H shape) and he's sorta got it but when I stand and look at it I say to the missus "see that one there with the white blotch in the corner- go 2 along and 1 up and it's there again. Now the one above it, go 2 along and one up and there's another repeat.. and so on most the way up the wall. Clearly they're in the boxes in a certain order, he's developed a method for making sure same ones aren't adjacent, but unwittingly he's put a pattern in."
If there are bits like this that you care about too much, get stuck in and do the prep, e.g. lay out and number the tiles, write instructions on the walls so your guys aren't going to have to chop and change