The house is in scaffolding in at the moment (yes I know bad English, I am shattered) as we are having the gable end repointed, a new porch roof, a lot of repairs to other walls, repairs done on the main roof etc.
After this is all done there is a list of other work which needs done, including bits I will do myself.
I am planning of fitting a new bath myself and fitting new kitchen units but there is a lot of work which needs to be done which I can't do and I have no idea how much it will cost.
So far I have got:-
Four new UPVC windows (the rest of the windows are fine or already quite new) I have estimated £2500 max, don't know the exact sizes but two big ones and two small ones - yes how long is a piece of string.
*Now for the big one, a 10ft sq2 room which needs re plastering on the walls and ceiling, the entire lot has failed. I have no idea how much this will cost any ideas?
*A PIR check done on the house, two extra sockets fitted in the kitchen, and a new consumer unit to replace the 32 year old Wylex standard 8 way. I have estimated £1500 but not sure exactly what a PIR check involves.
*Kitchen floor levelled, walls re skimmed and ceiling re plastered. Will assume the plasterer has a blank canvas to work with.
Any ideas of the cost of these?
There is much more work on the list, but it is mostly stuff like fitting kitchen units which we can do between us (no need to hire professional help).
Also how much does it cost to get a Glowarm Space saver boiler serviced?
The house is 1906 vintage and is a large (for a terraced house) 3 bed end terraced.
Basically any joinery and plumbing I do myself, any labourer stuff e.g knocking out plaster I will do myself. I just can't do plastering to safe my life and I cannot legally do the electrics and certainly do not have the knowledge to change a consumer unit!.
Sorry if this thread is vague and too long, just want very very rough ideas. E.g the 10ft room, I have no idea if it should cost £1000 or £5000.
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From my recollection of having some re-plastering done a couple of years ago, allow several hundred quid per room for this - it's probably a couple of days' work. (Initial skim to level plus finishing layer.) You're right - plastering is such a skilled job that it's pointless for a DIYer to attempt it.
Levelling the kitchen floor is much easier - possibly a DIY job, with the right product; however, if you're laying floor tiles, have this done professionally as well and get the tilers to level the floor as part of the job. While you can DIY floor tiles, the professionals are so much quicker, and until the floor is sorted you can't do anything else in the room. I had this done recently in a smallish conservatory (floor levelled and tiles laid on the diagonal - not an easy job, given the shape of the conservatory) and the labour was around £300. (I bought the tiles myself.)
Either get an electrician to do the electrics and expect to pay - your estimate may be about right. But you can legally do the electrics yourself* provided the work is certified afterwards (Part P of Building Regulations) and a sparky will charge a fair bit for this (after all, he's paid for his training and registration), or you can apply to the the local Building Control people to send their own people; in this case, be careful not to cover any work that may need inspection - e.g. cables below floors or above ceilings, particularly where these pass through structural components.
As regards boiler servicing, British Gas charge around £80 for an annual contract and I imagine a local heating engineer would do a one-off service cheaper.
Best of luck with the project!
*Changing a consumer unit is pretty straightforward, actually.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 08:03
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Rattle
You may find you can save a bob or two on the windows if you buy the frames and glass yourself.
There are several places who will supply windows only and then you just need to get someone to fit them or do it yourself. Comparing a 4' x 4' window price is straightforward whereas fully fit will dazzle you with spec, upgrades and discounts.
Here are some places you might want to look at
www.tradewindowsupplies.com/
glasstecwindows-trade.co.uk/windows.php
If you use a fully fitted firm you will get a crazy price and a far from transparent costs model for supply and fit. Which makes it difficult to work out what you are actually paying for their generally overpriced windows.
Get the windows yourself and then you only need to buy the time of someone to fit them or DIY. Its much easier to work out what someones time is worth than to work through all the blather fully fit will give about the specs and features of their frames and whether or not it is all truly worth what they want to sell them to you for. Fitting anything other than a bay window is reasonably DIY.
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 11:57
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Rattle
With regards a PIR costs are usually £20-£30 per circuit for the test then any remedial work charged at a standard electricians rate of say £30 p/h.
So for 8 circuits budget say £250 for the PIR and perhaps another half a day or slightly more for the labour relating to additions/replacements. Plus the cost of the new components. Screwfix do some 8 way consumer boards with RCD for less than £40 and sockets should not be more than a tenner.
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 12:24
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>> *Now for the big one, a 10ft sq2 room which needs re plastering on the
>> walls and ceiling, the entire lot has failed. I have no idea how much this
>> will cost any ideas?
I'm having some replastering done at the moment. It's an Edwardian house, so sounds like a similar era to yours. The sitting room is roughly 20' by 14' with 11' ceilings, and they're also doiing the hall (14' square), stairs and half the landing as well. All were covered in woodchip, and much of the wall went back to brick when it was stripped off. Total cost for replastering those areas is £2,400, of which roughly half is labour and half materials. That cost did not include stripping off the wallpaper or removing the blown plaster - the decorator did that.
So I reckon a 10' square room including the ceiling should be well under £1k; probably 2 days work at £200/day plus a couple of hundrded for materials
Last edited by: PeterS on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 12:33
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I also had a consumer unit replaced (old wylex rewirables replaced with an MK unit of some kind) and a kitchen and bathroom re-wired another house a few years ago. That came to £1,500 including all certificates, but did involve splitting a couple of circuits too IIRC.
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Windows are one of those other things where size isn't important ;-)
Usual rule is a set price per unit, so picture windows (one big unit) are quids in over bay windows (3 to 8 smaller units).
When a friend did a major refurb on his house, including adding an extra storey, he researched windows extensively and ended up ordering them direct, made-to-measure from Wickes.
He was a tad worried about fitting them (anything less than perfect is obvious), but I was able to recommend a double-glazing bloke local to me who was only too happy to spend a day fitting them for cash.
The whole lot worked out significantly cheaper than the best price he could get from the usual suspects.
Last edited by: TeeCee on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 13:58
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>> The house is in scaffolding in at the moment (yes I know bad English, I
>> am shattered) as we are having the gable end repointed, a new porch roof, a
>> lot of repairs to other walls, repairs done on the main roof etc.
Have you moved house or allowed your current one to get run down?
:-)
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I'd expect to reglaze the entire house for 2500, unless there's some big bay windows or summat. My rough rule of thumb is to find the price of a similar window in the Screwfix catalogue and double it to include fitting.
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As always will really only depend on the number of windows unless as mentioned they are bays.
There is only a marginal price difference between a 3' x 4' and 4' x 5 window to buy unless you believe the full fit firms.
Its therefore down to fitting and most flat panels are around 2 hrs time for old one out new one in if its DIY. It will be quicker if done by a pro but that depends on whether or not you think expanding foam is a legitimate tool of the trade.
I would find a local chippy/fitter who needs a little work and agree £25/30 per window fitted, how long it takes him is then his problem, or not as the case may be.
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 20:11
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It is my parents house, a dire lack of money over the past ten years has meant that they could only just afford the mortgage and bills so the only work that has been done is the DIY stuff. We have had some work done on the roof and three new windows fitted in the past ten years though, and a new bathroom my old joiner mate help me fit.
It is all nicely decorated but the structural things have been neglected, we have had bits of work done over the past ten years but it has all been cheap quick bodges.
I won't be doing the windows myself as I hate heights and there is a bit of a skill involved,
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 20:17
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Rattle
As long as you can use a saw (to remove the old frame) a drill, a screwdriver and spirit level there is little or no skill involved.
95% of the fixing work is done from inside the house.
Look around if you dont want to do this yourself there are many tradepeople who will fit whatever you buy for not a lot.
My earlier post gave a link to a trade window source in Manchester who will even supply a DIY fitting guide.
Its not hard to do.
As always
Mark
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Easy to fit the kitchen units yourself but make sure you get the firm supplying them to do the measuring. That way, if and when they screw up, it's not your fault.
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Alright Rattle
Here is your starter for 10
search.wickes.co.uk/search#ts=ajax&method=and&w=upvc%20windows&isort=score
Gives you an idea of what these might cost maybe you can get them for less locally but its FAR less than fully fit will sell them for.
Add a £30 fixing price per window if you get someone in and then you know where you are.
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 20:49
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Mark while I am still not planning of doing that myself, (nor would my parents let me!) it is a real eye opener and if we get quotes of £600 per window etc I will tell them to get stuffed!.
The last window we had fitted was in 2005, a large UPVC window in my room (used my student loan money!) and that cost £350 including fitting but I assumed things had gone up a lot, but those prices £350 seems expensive.
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Well it will probably be all flat packs anyway. The kitchen itself will be simple and basic nothing fancy, at the moment we have several B&Q value units me or my dad have fitted in the past 20 years, and a 1950's built unit which while is still serviceable (it gets frequent sanding and repainting) it has seen better days!.
The bath has a crack in it, which we repaired by using fibre glass epoxy type stuff, but it needs replacing really. It was a second hand thing that was given to us.
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Rattle OK
So we are getting somewhere on this, we do not have the full picture from your first post but;
PIR maybe £250
Other electrical work including new consumer unit maybe £250- £300
Windows unknown but around £150-£250 each (fitted by a third party) unless fancy
Plastering £150-£200 per day labour (plus materials maybe £10 a bag for screed or finish) maybe 3 days all in,
Bath and kitchen up to you
But its looking a lot less then you indicated.
Kmowledge is power now you should take control
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 21:24
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I know Rattle doesn't say he has any bay windows (but it's an Edwardian house isn't it) - but if you have a bay then the window may be load bearing and therefore it needs reinforcing and props in place to take it out.
We had a skim of the ceiling done in a bedroom the other week. We let a newly trained son of a friend have a good. He didn't charge too much - think it was £80 but that was just a skim on a ceiling. A chunk of that was for material too.
If in the medium term your parents might be looking to sell after the modification then do the essentials but be sure you get a return on the rest. But don't cut any corners.
Best of luck!
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You'll need FENSA certificates if they're selling.
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Certainly no plans to sell yet, but as they get older that may well change.
No bay windows involved, the front still has the original wooden windows and in very good knick they are too.
All that is required is four cheap basic standard windows for the back of the house.
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>> All that is required is four cheap basic standard windows for the back of the house.
So what happens if you install yourself? What about FENSA? Does that not matter? Will it put off future buyers? Curious more than anything.
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Good point RP. Forgot about that. I did the checks on this house (for free) when buying for that sort of stuff before getting a surveyor involved. Another house we nearly bought had subsidence (would have found on a search) and another had a big extension.... but no record of planning at all as far as I could find!
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 23 Mar 12 at 23:27
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If you fit the windows yourself you will need them certified by FENSA to comply with building regs. Most windows in a house such as yours will use the original timber frame as a load bearer and probably will not have lintels. Any replacement with upvc should include at least a steel re-enforcement above. Again if you are not using a fensa registered company for fitting, in theory you should have some sort of structural report done to assess the impact of changing the windows on the house structure. I say in theory because I've never known fensa registered companies to do this, but I believe part of being registered includes a catch all acknowledgement that they are sufficiently skilled to be able to assess the impact and remedial requirements themselves.....
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Estimate costs of renovation work - FocalPoint
