Repair Garage Quote

[kawak]

Hi,

I have just recieved the following quote from a builder in Ealing, London to repair my garage - 1 wall and the roof

Take off old tiles and roof construction
Demolish left hand external wall
Replace plywood with the newbrick wall above the garage gates
Rebuild new wall
Put pebble dash render on new wall
put the render on the new wall from inside
make new wooden roof construction
put sarking felt and battens on new roof
put new tiles
apply white paint

Materials - £2680
Labour - £3125
Total - £5805

Is this good? sounds expensive.

Thanks

 

[JerryM]

it's always worth getting at least 2 and possibly 3 quotes to be sure.

my gut feeling is that the materials are high but the labour is probably not to bad if the planned duration of the work is quoted in the region of say 3 weeks.

 

[kawak]

Hi JerryM,

Thanks for the reply.

He has quoted 25 days for the job. I've decided to do as you suggest and get another cuople of quotes.

Thanks again.

 

[JerryM]

i feel getting successful quotes one of the hardest things to do.

these are my thoughts in case they may be of use:

1) ask as many friends and relatives for a word of mouth recommendation and even if no exact match contact is found try any slight leads for any secondary recommendation ie any tradesman will have contacts with other trades
2) quote price is no guarantee of success ie low is not necessarily best neither is high.
3) be wary of any requests to pay up front except for materials. stage any payments against completion of physical stages of the work
4) get to know "who's" quoting by asking them about themselves ie how long in job, pictures of completed work, addresses to drive passed completed work
5) difficult one but generally tradesmen will have several weeks work planned ahead of them and will not be able to start straight away (not always the case though)
6) try to be flexible in start date to fit in with their workload
7) get them to talk you through exactly what they plan to do so as to minimise any potential for misunderstandings