JonG wrote:
John Williamson wrote:

I'm in the market for somewhere to live, and there are a couple of
empty plots nearby.

If it comes up almost as cheap as buying somwehere older and doing it
up, I'd maybe prefer it.

Two places which helped when I was disputing the bill and quotes our
Architect[1] sent us a few years ago for our extension:

http://www.homebuilding.co.uk/self-b...ost-calculator


this seems to have changed rather from when I was hfrvat it in about
2002-3, but is quite detailed.

Downloaded. Ta. That's more detailed than the other sites I've tried.
It's also coming up a bit cheaper.

We also sent a copy of the architect's plans to:

http://www.estimators-online.co.uk/howto.jsp

Bookmarked, just in case....

and, for a very reasonable fee, got a quote broken down virtually to the
last masonary nail, and significantly less than the quotes obtained by
said architect. ISTR that they do need proper plans to work from, but
may be worth contacting them anyway with a less- advanced scheme.

Just for now, the quick and easy, one size fits all site has given me an
indication of the possibilites. The Bill of Quantities can wait until later.

Information from those sources helped me to get the architect's bill
reduced by 90% plus the VAT, but whether that was due to the quality of
the estimates, or my threat to complain to RIBA and elsewhere if he did
not accept my reduced offer, I shall never know!

I would still recommend the architect for production of plans [2] and
dealing with planning permission [3] unless you have the requisite
skills, as it appears to be a Very steep learning curve. I strongly
suspect that builders are likely to give better quotes for a project
with professional plans than one with Q-V-L ones.

Final plans will be drawn up by an architect from a reasonably detailed
plan by myself and after consultation.

I'll also let them deal with the planning, as they know the planners
better than I do.
--
Tciao for Now!

John.