Kitchen refurb

[treacletown08]

We are thinking getting our kitchen refurbed which includes taking a wall down, fitting a steel etc, refit kitchen and utility room
, tiling, flooring. Is it cheaper to project manage it ourselves and deal with individual trades direct rather than let a builder organise the whole project? We have been quoted for just the labour and then we have to add flooring, the kitchen and appliances on top and it seems a lot for a medium sized project.

 

[noseall]

Is it cheaper to project manage it ourselves

How's your knowledge of building materials? Are you happy to be responsible for the steel beam for instance? Do you know what is required regards the beam like primer, holes in web, fire protection, pad's etc.
If customers cherry pick parts of a job when it suits, it can create a bad working environment to the uninitiated. How is your relationship with local suppliers?
You will need a builder, plasterer, floor/wall tiler, kitchen fitter. How do you feel communicating amongst them all? Let's say for instance the kitchen fitter fits the cab's, then the floor tiler adds another 15mm to the floor level with some levelling compound because the floor levels between the knock-out spaces were crap.

 

[treacletown08]

Thank you for the reply. Yes I do know all about those potential issues and they wouldn’t be a problem.

Have a great day

 

[^woody^]

The amount of crap trades people around at the moment makes managing million-pound jobs with formal contracts in place difficult, so I doubt it will be any easier or better dealing with several randomers fitting a kitchen.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Unless you've got the time available to be on site permanently during the scheme and sufficient knowledge of building and associated works so you can tell what's right and what's not right just by looking at it you will be buying yourself a world of pain.
You need to find a good local builder (yes I know that's the hard part) to run the scheme- said builder will then coordinate the other trades.
Material delivery can be a big problem- eg if you are ordering the kitchen bits yourself and they are delivered late or wrong you'll be swallowing the wasted labour costs while you sort the problem out.

 

[mikeey84]

How much have you been quoted for labour, if you don't mind sharing? It maybe you've received an over priced quote, in which case there is money to be saved, or you could have unrealistic expectations of how much building work costs these days.

As the others have said, it's about risk vs reward, and also are you prepared to DIY some aspects of it, as that is the ultimate way to save cash

 

[treacletown08]

12k that is to fit a medium sized kitchen, and utility, electrics, plumbing, tiling , take down one 3metre wall, RSJ, building regs, structural survey and to board and skim porch.

 

[mikeey84]

I would say that is a reasonable quote, as that's not your average kitchen fit.

You could struggle to save that much by managing yourself, especially given the potential issues mentioned above

Plus it's likely to take a while longer if you don't get 1 firm to do it all