help with renovation costs please

[ilovecrisps]

OK so I'm always looking for ways that we might be able to buy a house and I'm back to this.

Please help me, name change, talk in percentages whatever allows you to answer these money questions (sorry to be so nosy)

if we are talking about a house lived in by a little old lady not touched for years, so bad there are no photos of inside or garden on EA website (3 bed terrace SW London)

what % of asking price did you pay?

can you please tell me how much it took to do the various renovations?
rewiring
replumbing
new windows
new doors
new floors
redecorating
new kitchen
new bathroom
loft conversion
side return

moving wall bathroom is through back bedroom so would need to take down old wall move and reerect to make bathroom and bedroom

anything I've missed?

did you get one company to do it all?

how long did it take?

would you do it if you/DP were not builders?

can you do any of it yourself?

how much over budget did it go?

if the maths works I'll be back for recommendations

thankyou so much

[Thandeka]

marking place as currently undertaking similar project myself (just at quotes stage at min though)

What do you mean by replumbing.

We are doing less work than you and budgeting 20k@
rewiring
new kitchen
upstairs WC
part new bathroom (keeping some of it)
replastering and redecorating
central heating being put in
hideous fireplace and wardrobes and insulated ceilings being ripped out.

[Thandeka]

I know loft conversion is approx 30k if done properly with staircase etc.

new windows approx £3k i think

[lalalonglegs]

There's a lot of work there and some of it is serious structural stuff so, given the area, I don't think you are going to get any change out of six figure. It depends a lot on what you want - for example, replumbing - does that include the heating system? Do you want a boiler plus a water heater (such as a Megaflo tank) or just a combi boiler? Will you reuse radiators or do you want new ones? Do you want standard or tall ones?

It's really, really difficult to guestimate but I'd allow at least #30k for loft conversion to plaster finish (ie, you then pay extra for shower-room fittings, tiling, decorating, flooring etc). Side return depends how long the return is, how many storeys above it, the roofing you have on the return and what you want to do in terms of windows out onto the rear but I would allow an absolute minimum of #30k for that as well.

We paid #5k to have our four-bed maisonette completely rewired and had nicer-than-standard sockets and switches plus entryphone.

HTH. Good luck.

[traceybath]

We're in the process of buying a house (fingers crossed) and it will need a lot of work doing - probably similar amount.

We'll be paying 20% under the asking price and realistically think we'll spend upwards of £200k doing all the work.

Its a big job.

[Thandeka]

its not in Bath is it Tracey?

[traceybath]

Village outside Thandeka

[Thandeka]

aha- our renovation job is inside!
Waves at neighbour!

[Thandeka]

if you find any good tradespeople send em my way!

[granddesign]

Rewiring £6000
New Kitchen £20000
Bathrooms *3 £12000
New central Heating £12000
New windows £18000
Floors downstairs £50/square metre plus fitting - maybe another £30/square meter
Doors £30/door
Handles & hinges £60/door

I'd do it - but make sure you have good builders.

[propercrimbo]

hiya, we have just done a similar thing BUT we are in North Lancashire so prices obviously will vary, we bought a 3 bed detached bungalow, on market for £200,000 paid £170,000 and it has taken us (so far) 11 months, we have had full rewire, new plumbing/heating/boiler rooms shifted about, new roof including all the bits and bobs, gutters spouts etc, and bathroom etc, haven't skimped on anything by any means, so far we have prob spent around £30k we still have the kitchen to do but, we have recently found out we are expecting twins so will fit the kitchen with a view to re sell rather than dream kitchen iyswim as we will have to move when the children get bigger (already have 1 DS)
we have done a lot of prep work ourselves, removing bathroom suite sanding woodwork, painting etc although we did get a decorator in to line all the walls and he was worth his weight in gold!
It's worth also saying our builder/joiner is a one man band so apart from plumber/ electrician/decorator he has done everything else.
Hope that helps, happy to answer any questions if you want

[Thandeka]

our quote for new central heating is £3k (3bed terrace)- think £12k is pushing it unless pipes are gold?

Also have to pay £600 for gas to be connected to house.

[propercrimbo]

oh, new windows and doors throughout too!

[Thandeka]

oh and our house was 4k under asking price but asking price was 31k under standard for the street so we felt reasonable.

[ilovecrisps]

thankyou very much guys all good stuff to work on!

can I ask anyone what about the stuff you don't think of so eg the window ledge outside the window I think it will prob need doing as new windows go in how do you remember to budget for all that?


tracey please pop back if you get any more info can I ask how big your place is? any idea how long they expect it to take?

lala by 6 figures do you mean say 120k rather than 250!!

[GwennieF]

Do you have kids under 6 and get family/working tax credits? If you do, I think you may be able to get help with the double-glazing and insulation from the Govt.

[ilovecrisps]

replumbing pipes will be lead would need new bathroom plus plumbing for washing machine etc so I guess it would make sense to replace pipes at start rather than wait for a leak

don't know much about heating/boilers!! whole thing would need to be new plus new radiators

side return just filling in the gap with single story

I'm of the IKEA type of furnishings but out of interest if doing all that work what would you splash out on? what do you think would add the most value (apart rom twigs in a vase of course )

crimbo your place sounds like a bargain (congrats on the babies)

ps does line the walls mean plastering?

[propercrimbo]

The sills outside are included with the windows (or they were with ours), although ours are only little, not big enough to hold anything like a window box, more just a rain diverter really, we estimated spending around £25k altogether and have speant £35k so far without the kitchen and outside works, now some of that is because we chose a more expensive bathroom suite, solid oak internal doors etc, but some of it was unexpected costs and never having done it before there are bound to be loads of those!

[propercrimbo]

ilovecrisps thankyou! lined as in lining paper which we then painted and he has done an immaculate job, it cost us about £1500 to have the whole house done, but thats definitely something I would do again!
Thats the N/S divide I'm afraid, friends of ours have just bought a house in essex, similar sq footage to ours and spent 2 1/2 times as much!!

[ilovecrisps]

I'm wondering whether travelling up North to buy doors bathroom etc would make that much difference!!


thought all those schemes were bing phased out Gwennie

[GwennieF]

They may well be - I had mine done the week before Christmas though, so you might still catch the end of it...

[granddesign]

New central heating system for 4 bed house to include underflooring heating, rads upstairs, new pipes throughout, megaflow, boiler and paying London prices.

Had an old boiler replaced by a combi in my flat in SW London - I paid around £3000 (British gas quoted £5000) and that was nearly 10 years ago.

You're very lucky to be able to replace a complete system for £3k now.

[Lovecat]

What are the walls like?

I only ask because when we converted our flat and the one above it back into a house, the walls and ceilings upstairs had had nothing done to them since the house was built in 1910 and needed total renovation; although they were decorated and looked fine to the inexpert observer (us) the plaster was hanging off them (if you prod the wall it should not move - ours 'bounced' back at you!) and the ceiling was ever so slightly bowed in the middle, same bouncing issue when prodded! We had to have them stripped back to the brick/lathe wall dividers, stud partition replacements where the lathe wall had disintegrated, and all replastered. The ceilings had to be totally renewed.

It added a lot to our renovation budget, but as it was over 10 years ago now, I don't suppose giving costs would be useful to you...

Also check what your floors are like beneath the carpets if possible - our kitchen floor was 1/3rd floorboards, 1/3rd concrete and 1/3rd bit of chipboard nailed across a gaping hole, all hidden beneath a carpet!

[lalalonglegs]

It really depends on the house and, I hope this doesn't sound snobbish, the neighbourhood. A three-bedroom house in Colliers Wood probably needs a lower spec than the equivalent house in Battersea. I personally think Ikea do great kitchens but they have to be well laid-out and gussied up a bit with nice counters etc to give a good overall look.

By saying six figures, I meant that you might be able to bring it in at the low 100,000 mark but depending on the spec you want and the hidden jobs that always arise, it would probably be more.

I am very thick and always forget about labour costs when I have to do costs (or rather I have to remind myself to include them). So I will see great wooden flooring at a really reasonable price and in my excitement not think about the installation costs, for example. When you're doing a really big refurb, a little bit of labour here and a bit of an upgrade on standard fittings there really adds up.

Other things that are easy to forget are the cost of building regs and planning applications (including drawings), party wall consents and waste disposal (skips, having someone come in and load a flatbed van and take it all away - in London, that can be thousands).

[larus]

We did a major renovation on our house about 5 years ago. Well I say we, most was done by builders. We did the stripping out, but they did the plumbing/wiring plus loft/garage conversions. We can refit bathrooms etc, but its a shock how long these things take especially if you are doing them yourself. Depends on how long you want to live in a building site!

I think the main things I came away with were:

1. It always costs more than you think - would allow a 20% contingency as a minimum depending on type/age of house
   

1. Be very thorough on checking post build - I still regret not picking up on some things at the time.
   

1. Make sure you trust and talk to your builder - we had 4 quotes (took about 5 months and contact with more than 12 builders to get to that stage) and didn't go with the cheapest because of the references.
   

It was a fairly stressful experience but meant we can live in an area we love in a house big enough for our family - there is no way we could have afforded a house this size without doing the work.

[SeoraeMaeul]

Big factor is how much time you can put into this - to project manage independent contractors versus hire one firm, to sort out quotes, look for bargins and even do some of it yourself.

We've done two houses over the years and frankly speaking we - as a couple - are utterly crap at that kind of thing and had two jobs with very long hours, plus small children. In short realistically we couldn't find the time. So when we moved - both in SW London - we got one firm (same one both times) and asked them to do the whole project. All in all what we paid for in fees I think we made up for in them sourcing prices at wholesale and knowing what they were doing on the job overall versus bit by bit. In fairness the main guy is a friend of ours so we trusted him 100% or more.
In Fulham in 2003 on a 3 bed we spent about 50 to 60k and in Clapham in 2006 on a 5 bed and major rework (it had been a rental property for years) I'd say nearer the 80k mark but we did go for a great kitchen and bathrooms so we could probably have saved.

All I can say is be honest with yourself. Do you really have it in you (either through necessity or desire) to do that amount of rework. The worst and most expensive option is to start off with good intentions and end up bodging it yourselves before calling some one in. Trust me I know some horror stories on that front!