We did wonder why the window fitters faces were all blurred out, then a couple of minutes later it turns out they did a right cowboy job, no wonder they didn't want to be identified. Unbelievable
Ok, so just watched grand designs....great house and quite a clever design and construction...
But what the hell....nearly 3 times the origional price and the little old lady didnt want to blame anyone...
There is no way on this earth that house was worth £600,000
It pisses me off that building firms can pick on the elderly amongst us and get away with it!!!
Is it me or did she seem to spend most of the program off her head on painkillers?
We did wonder why the window fitters faces were all blurred out, then a couple of minutes later it turns out they did a right cowboy job, no wonder
they didn't want to be identified. Unbelievable
i only caught the end and assumed it was her fault - did she get shafted? Or did she change spec etc.
If she had got a comprehensive quote in writing then she should've been ok.
Pretty much every window and the conservatory leaked due to poor fitting, and it sounded like the company went awol after...
Surley if she was quoted 200,000 thats pretty much what she should have paid...
It sounds like she had to pay to have the window errors rectified, along with pay the extra costs due to the builders being total useless homless
fools
quote:
Originally posted by tegwin
Surley if she was quoted 200,000 thats pretty much what she should have paid...
I couldn't believe how difficult they made putting the staircase in. What sort of 'tard completely assembles it and then tries to lower it
in on the wonk knowing that a) it's only a few mm smaller than the hole and b) the hole is smaller than it should have been 
They seem to be repeating this series again at prime time for some reason , I think I originally saw this one about 18 months ago!
I missed this one but I think it's a great programme. I would like to see someone building an alternative design on a real budget such as £80,000 or less, it's mainly some rich bloke's dream house.
They all differ...some weeks its a rich mans castle and others its a hole...
My old man was thinking about going on grand designs with his self designed eco home using pretty much every single energy saving device available on
the plannet....
We even managed to get it so in theory the heating and most of the lighting would cost nothing to run....However the initial outlay isnt going to be
nice
He was thinking of a mixture of photovoltaic cells and a water turbine to power an exhaust air heat pump and solar pannels for the heating as well as
charge batteries to power the lighting circuit... Crazy fool!
I designed my own house (about 16yrs ago), and had it built by a well regarded local builder. The final cost was nearly double his initial estimate
(!) , and because we were not on a fixed price scheme we had no option but to crawl to the Building Society and borrow more cash.
Builder's estimates bear no resemblence to the final price...I'm sure they under-estimate as a matter of course.
I'm all for it being eco-freindly but for people in my position (30 & still live at home on the family farm) who cant really afford to buy
anything local it'd be very interesting to see what can be done on a real budget. To be honest though the cost of a site to build on is where the
real cost would be.
Was the one tonight the one where the old woman gets a house built in the garden of her original house, made from concrete filled polystyrene blocks
& had rounded walls? The staircase thing sounds like it.
I am afraid Builders, Architects and Quantity surveyors never get build costs even remotely correct! They tend to use pricing books that you can buy
yourself. These are based on historical data and generally cover the simplest and cheapest forms of construction so as soon as you try and do
anything different they don't have a clue!
Caber
Oi i am a Quantity Surveyor
Most people make the mistake of using a PQS who may not be directly linked to the housebuilding environment they will know in theory about building
houses but not have any real experiance (they wont know brick from s**t ). what you would need is a qs ( prefrably one from a house building
background ) to act as project manager on a fixed price contract.
I deal with housing sites with around 90 units on and would hate to think i was overbudget by even 5-10%
Thank god for contingencies and PC sums 
Having seen it first time round istr the real problem with the building was they were using a new construction technique on a complex building and
trying to rush it.
As a result the dimensons were way off spec.
quote:
Originally posted by hillbillyracer
I missed this one but I think it's a great programme. I would like to see someone building an alternative design on a real budget such as £80,000 or less, it's mainly some rich bloke's dream house.
quote:
Originally posted by hillbillyracer
I'm all for it being eco-freindly but for people in my position (30 & still live at home on the family farm) who cant really afford to buy anything local it'd be very interesting to see what can be done on a real budget.
I
can't remeber if the land wasn't in the family already though. quote:
Originally posted by chriscalcite
quote:
Originally posted by hillbillyracer
I'm all for it being eco-freindly but for people in my position (30 & still live at home on the family farm) who cant really afford to buy anything local it'd be very interesting to see what can be done on a real budget.
There was one Grand Designs, maybe 2 or so years ago, with was a young couple who had very little money and quite modest plans (small 3-bed detached IIRC) who came in on budget, on time and on spec. The fact that both the bloke and his father-in-law were professional builders might have helped
Chris
quote:
Originally posted by DaveFJ
If thats the one with the amazing Porch way then thats the one I mean.... lovely house
Build you own house for £250000
[Edited on 24/5/07 by kitcar007kev]
Prefabbing is much easier than all on site with wet trades, and in any case the prefab would need all groundworks done.
QS's and pricing books? hehehe. we use them for hourly rates usually, and only occaisionally. I would love to see a layman use one to price a
complete project. How many different items do you think there are to construct, say, the external walls? 1 or 2? It would be pages!
the prefab house was a HufHaus link
and was pretty special....
<rant>
they say they can have a house 'built' and ready to move into in less than a week - all they need is the correct foundations laid. IIRC when
they turned up to do the house in the UK the local builders had laid the foundations but they weren't accurate enough for the germans.... they
insist on the whole house being millimeter perfect - whereas anyone who has looked at a recently built house in the UK will see that your lucky if the
walls are even straight!
Sad to say but the standard of craftsmanship in most areas of UK society has plummeted. We don't have 'Craftsmen' anymore - just
builders/carpenters etc and the 'good enough' ethic seems to prevail. Where are all the skilled engineers these days? why, when you go to a
garage, do you have that feeling of dread as some barely literate monkey starts looking under the bonnet?
Until I met a few guys on here and saw some of their craftsmanship I had completely given up on this country! But these guys aren't doing it for
a living (mostly)... thats left to the monkeys
</rant>
[Edited on 24/5/07 by DaveFJ]
The germans have the ethos that a man/woman who does useful things is to be respected this goes all the way from the the guy that repairs bikes to the head of engineering at Porsche. Here we saw actually doing things as something to be looked down on as a result the country is run by idiots who just happened to have gone to the same expensive schools and wangle thier way into universities on connections not abillity.
So how much, excluding the cost of land, do you reckon you could build a medium sized 3 bed house for? Nowt fancy, just a house and a double garage, for example.
an often quoted figure is £1000 per square metre. There is space for a lot of variation though.
Lots of variation up I suppose? Just contemplating doing something round my way.
Oh, is that £1000 per M of ground space, or flooring? Ie 1 story or two
[Edited on 24/5/07 by DIY Si]
that figure comes from extentions and is per floor. 600 bare shell, 9-12 fully finished.
Any idea how much it would vary for a new build after the foundations are done? Or basically the same?
similar probably, with extras for laying in the new services, central heating etc, bathroom and kitchen. With a name like DIYsi you should just get a
bare shell and a caravan, do the rest yourself!
I would be willing to have a go, but the wife wouldn't! If anything does happen, I'd probably be on site most days working, and I know a
few sparky's, so a fair bit would be done by me/them. Actually, I know a plasterer or two as well. Mmmmm, costs should plumit down at this rate!
Si, my place is a flatpack from TekHaus - built by Kingspan.
It was designed in Germany, assembled onsite in 4 days for the main structure, and then finished.
The cost was about £600/sq metre in 2004.
Have a look at:
http://www.tek.kingspan.com/uk/pdf/TEK_literature_32pp.pdf
http://www.tek.kingspan.com/uk/pdf/TEK_Info_for_Self_Builders.pdf
I would guess that land prices would be an issue today though
Martin