Looking for cost of building a house in 2015

thebackbar

Gerryfaulmore wrote: »

Well my friend next door has done it for 110,000 and we are using same friends all tradesmen don't no where people are getting quote for 350 k and above i will be doin all labour myself that's blocks roof and help on plaster just to keep labour cost to minumium

I'm building circa 2700sq ft budget is close to 350 too !!

Personally I feel very misleading for people to come on forums like this quoting that a house of that size can be built for 110k without giving a breakdown

just some of the costs/prices i've seen

Bead insulation 6,100
Windows {17-24k}
Heat Recovery 7k
ESB Connection 2,4k
Electrical (supply + fit} 13k
water connection 4,8k
sofit+facia 3,9k
plumbing 23 including air to water heating system
plastering (labour only) 14k
sanitary ware 5k

that's the guts of 80 k already

sheff the ref

Sometimes prices can vary based on labour, based on ability to get materials at reduced rates, and based on the finish.

There is no comparison between a builders quote for a turnkey house to be finished in minimum time and the cost of building a house over a few years tipping away at your own pace and biding your time looking for bargains on the materials. I know one person who basically provided himself as a labourer to a blocklayer for a fixed period of time on other jobs in exchange for free blocklaying.

gooner99

sheff the ref wrote: »

Sometimes prices can vary based on labour, based on ability to get materials at reduced rates, and based on the finish.

There is no comparison between a builders quote for a turnkey house to be finished in minimum time and the cost of building a house over a few years tipping away at your own pace and biding your time looking for bargains on the materials. I know one person who basically provided himself as a labourer to a blocklayer for a fixed period of time on other jobs in exchange for free blocklaying.

Yes I guess it can be done this way.I know of a house where the persons parents did most of the work.father built and mother was the labourer!

JamesK23

Just got prices back for tender. Includes waste treatment, landscaping level soil and seed grass, gravel drive way, footpaths,patio. No garage. Underfloor heating, air source heat pump, heat recovery system, triple glazed windows. It's a block build.

2500 square feet
Lowest 305k
Highest €470k

Client items €70k all priced up (planning contributions, architect, kitchen, sanitary ware, tiles, wooden floors, cooker, fridge dishwasher, stove, esb connection, water well drilling, legal fees, architect). No furniture or wardrobes priced yet.

Full outlay
Total lowest including client items €375k €150 per square foot
Total highest including client items €540k €216 per square foot

A long way off on what I imagined at the start of the process!! Things are getting crazy again. I can carve out costs on the lowest tender but will still be quite a bit over my budget. Lucky I didn't have to pay for the site. Originally I was expecting to come in or around €250k to €275k for full outlay.

Angry bird

JamesK23 wrote: »

Just got prices back for tender. Includes waste treatment, landscaping level soil and seed grass, gravel drive way, footpaths,patio. No garage. Underfloor heating, air source heat pump, heat recovery system, triple glazed windows. It's a block build.

2500 square feet
Lowest 305k
Highest €470k

Client items €70k all priced up (planning contributions, architect, kitchen, sanitary ware, tiles, wooden floors, cooker, fridge dishwasher, stove, esb connection, water well drilling, legal fees, architect). No furniture or wardrobes priced yet.

Full outlay
Total lowest including client items €375k €150 per square foot
Total highest including client items €540k €216 per square foot

A long way off on what I imagined at the start of the process!! Things are getting crazy again. I can carve out costs on the lowest tender but will still be quite a bit over my budget. Lucky I didn't have to pay for the site. Originally I was expecting to come in or around €250k to €275k for full outlay.

Maybe cut back on the landscaping level soil and seed grass, gravel drive way, footpaths,patio for now. These are money pits in my view, it it limitless what you can spend on it. Get the outside basics done for now, the rest can be done at a later time, garage as well possibly. Concentrate on the house and get 3 architects quotes.

JamesK23

They are some of the areas that I'm going to cut back on,plus finishing spare bedrooms and En-suites.

rodge123

JamesK23 wrote: »

Just got prices back for tender. Includes waste treatment, landscaping level soil and seed grass, gravel drive way, footpaths,patio. No garage. Underfloor heating, air source heat pump, heat recovery system, triple glazed windows. It's a block build.

2500 square feet
Lowest 305k
Highest €470k

Client items €70k all priced up (planning contributions, architect, kitchen, sanitary ware, tiles, wooden floors, cooker, fridge dishwasher, stove, esb connection, water well drilling, legal fees, architect). No furniture or wardrobes priced yet.

Full outlay
Total lowest including client items €375k €150 per square foot
Total highest including client items €540k €216 per square foot

A long way off on what I imagined at the start of the process!! Things are getting crazy again. I can carve out costs on the lowest tender but will still be quite a bit over my budget. Lucky I didn't have to pay for the site. Originally I was expecting to come in or around €250k to €275k for full outlay.

Hi James

We are waiting to get tenders back this week hopefully for similar sized house - based on what I'm reading I'm getting a little worried that prices have shot up since we started thinking of building over 2 years ago.

Do you mind me asking:
- What county is your build in?
- Is it a good site? I.e. Flat, good natural drainage, easily access, etc.
- Is the house bungalow, dormer, 2 storey?
- Is the house design fairly straight forward? I.e. straight walls, minimal hips and valleys in roof, budgeted for standard depth foundations, etc.

Thanks

JamesK23

rodge123 wrote: »

Hi James

We are waiting to get tenders back this week hopefully for similar sized house - based on what I'm reading I'm getting a little worried that prices have shot up since we started thinking of building over 2 years ago.

Do you mind me asking:
- What county is your build in?
- Is it a good site? I.e. Flat, good natural drainage, easily access, etc.
- Is the house bungalow, dormer, 2 storey?
- Is the house design fairly straight forward? I.e. straight walls, minimal hips and valleys in roof, budgeted for standard depth foundations, etc.

Thanks

Flat enough sight with slight fall in sight. Good drainage with easy access.
Storey and a half
Was conscious of keeping the design easy to build to keep costs down. From some of the prices that doesn't seem to matter. The builders seem to price per square foot regardless.

What stage are you at?

rodge123

JamesK23 wrote: »

Flat enough sight with slight fall in sight. Good drainage with easy access.
Storey and a half
Was conscious of keeping the design easy to build to keep costs down. From some of the prices that doesn't seem to matter. The builders seem to price per square foot regardless.

What stage are you at?

We're at tendering stage, waiting for prices to come back in next week or so.
Same as yourself- 1.5 storey, flat well drained site and kept design simple enough.

What county is your build in?

JamesK23

rodge123 wrote: »

We're at tendering stage, waiting for prices to come back in next week or so.
Same as yourself- 1.5 storey, flat well drained site and kept design simple enough.

What county is your build in?

North Louth

rodge123

JamesK23 wrote: »

North Louth

And would your cheapest tender quote have been from a builder based in the north or very close?
As compared to your most expensive quote been from a builder further south?
I've heard that northern contractors tend to be cheaper, don't know why.
If anyone can confirm if this is true, I'd be curious to know.

JamesK23

rodge123 wrote: »

And would your cheapest tender quote have been from a builder based in the north or very close?
As compared to your most expensive quote been from a builder further south?
I've heard that northern contractors tend to be cheaper, don't know why.
If anyone can confirm if this is true, I'd be curious to know.

Came from southern builder cheapest quote and a very good builder too. One price from northern builder.

sheff the ref

The fact that there is 165K in the difference between two prices suggests that people are trying to take you for a ride.

JamesK23 wrote: »

Just got prices back for tender. Includes waste treatment, landscaping level soil and seed grass, gravel drive way, footpaths,patio. No garage. Underfloor heating, air source heat pump, heat recovery system, triple glazed windows. It's a block build.

2500 square feet
Lowest 305k
Highest €470k

Client items €70k all priced up (planning contributions, architect, kitchen, sanitary ware, tiles, wooden floors, cooker, fridge dishwasher, stove, esb connection, water well drilling, legal fees, architect). No furniture or wardrobes priced yet.

Full outlay
Total lowest including client items €375k €150 per square foot
Total highest including client items €540k €216 per square foot

A long way off on what I imagined at the start of the process!! Things are getting crazy again. I can carve out costs on the lowest tender but will still be quite a bit over my budget. Lucky I didn't have to pay for the site. Originally I was expecting to come in or around €250k to €275k for full outlay.

BryanF

sheff the ref wrote: »

The fact that there is 165K in the difference between two prices suggests that people are trying to take you for a ride.

Do we know what level of drawings, detail or clarity of specification/ scope?

Could for example, the higher Bidders be busy and just pricing themselves out of it.
Or could the lower Bidders, albeit with good recommendations, price keenly intending to try to alter construction methods, to save them. or perhaps they have spotted a gap in the spec/ scope for some additional costs ?

It is advisable to have an experienced arch / eng / Qs prepare and then review tenders - they should be able to pick through the costs and seek price clarity/ certainty and offer a technical opinion on who the best fit / approach.

sheff the ref

In fairness the 165K price difference alone would do a lot of the work on that size of a house so I doubt the cheaper builder is taking shortcuts!!!

BryanF wrote: »

Do we know what level of drawings, detail or clarity of specification/ scope?

Could for example, the higher Bidders be busy and just pricing themselves out of it.
Or could the lower Bidders, albeit with good recommendations, price keenly intending to try to alter construction methods, to save them. or perhaps they have spotted a gap in the spec/ scope for some additional costs ?

It is advisable to have an experienced arch / eng / Qs prepare and then review tenders - they should be able to pick through the costs and seek price clarity/ certainty and offer a technical opinion on who the best fit / approach.

galwaytt

sheff the ref wrote: »

The fact that there is 165K in the difference between two prices suggests that people are trying to take you for a ride.

Nonsense - it tells you no such thing. And €165k will go nowhere to completing 2500ft2 house to the appropriate standards.

It could tell you for instance that the cheapest builder is putting in a low-ball price just to get cashflow. Or that he doesn't understand the performance he'll have to meet.

The most expensive may be just becuase they know exactly what the tender called for, and priced it exactly as specified.

I've heard it before, and hear it repeatedly - that builders have a Hobsons choice to make when a tender comes in: price what it will take to do the job - or price literally what's on the tender. The former may be accurate, but may disqualify them from the job. The latter may be literally correct but put them out of the running because it is nearly too accurate and higher priced. The problem arises when you get one of each competing for the same job.

In general it's not that 'madness' is on the way back: it's that now most builders will not take on a loss-making job. Building has been, literally, too cheap (often at cost) in the last few years, just to keep people working. Now normality is creeping and back in and the higher prices people are now seeing are in fact 'normal' - it's just they've been heavily discounted for the last few years out of vital necessity.

You've seen increases in tax, insurance, electricity, gas, water even - and all manner of things in the last 5 years - and more to come: do you think construction exists in a bubble ??

JamesK23

BryanF wrote: »

Do we know what level of drawings, detail or clarity of specification/ scope?

Could for example, the higher Bidders be busy and just pricing themselves out of it.
Or could the lower Bidders, albeit with good recommendations, price keenly intending to try to alter construction methods, to save them. or perhaps they have spotted a gap in the spec/ scope for some additional costs ?

It is advisable to have an experienced arch / eng / Qs prepare and then review tenders - they should be able to pick through the costs and seek price clarity/ certainty and offer a technical opinion on who the best fit / approach.

€470k was not priced by QS. All other prices were done by QS. Difficult to alter the construction method as architect compiled a detailed pack listing with construction drawings. Architect reviewed in detail.

sheff the ref

I am sorry but the banks work on a baseline of €80 to €85 per square foot for mortgages, not that I am fond of square foot pricing.

Based on that, they are indicating that you would get a decent chunk of an uncomplicated 2500 square foot house done for €165,000.

galwaytt wrote: »

Nonsense - it tells you no such thing. And €165k will go nowhere to completing 2500ft2 house to the appropriate standards.

It could tell you for instance that the cheapest builder is putting in a low-ball price just to get cashflow. Or that he doesn't understand the performance he'll have to meet.

The most expensive may be just becuase they know exactly what the tender called for, and priced it exactly as specified.

I've heard it before, and hear it repeatedly - that builders have a Hobsons choice to make when a tender comes in: price what it will take to do the job - or price literally what's on the tender. The former may be accurate, but may disqualify them from the job. The latter may be literally correct but put them out of the running because it is nearly too accurate and higher priced. The problem arises when you get one of each competing for the same job.

In general it's not that 'madness' is on the way back: it's that now most builders will not take on a loss-making job. Building has been, literally, too cheap (often at cost) in the last few years, just to keep people working. Now normality is creeping and back in and the higher prices people are now seeing are in fact 'normal' - it's just they've been heavily discounted for the last few years out of vital necessity.

You've seen increases in tax, insurance, electricity, gas, water even - and all manner of things in the last 5 years - and more to come: do you think construction exists in a bubble ??

galwaytt

sheff the ref wrote: »

I am sorry but the banks work on a baseline of €80 to €85 per square foot for mortgages, not that I am fond of square foot pricing.

Based on that, they are indicating that you would get a decent chunk of an uncomplicated 2500 square foot house done for €165,000.

Sorry, but I'm dealing with clients on 3 sites with banks atmo, and I can attest they are all working over €110/ft2 and upwards.

But even if they were working off € 50 -85, no-one will, can, build at that price, so what relevance is it ? If they loan you €165k, and then ask for a cert of completion, but you're in fact only half way through building it, then what ? The figure the bank uses is for their purposes: it won't do anything in the tender process or get it actually completed.

Tefral

sheff the ref wrote: »

I am sorry but the banks work on a baseline of €80 to €85 per square foot for mortgages, not that I am fond of square foot pricing.

True the bank are using this, i have first hand of this myself, however im a QS and the reality on the ground is vastly different! your talking €100-120 a sqft depending where you are. In dublin you can go again...

JamesK23

galwaytt wrote: »

Sorry, but I'm dealing with clients on 3 sites with banks atmo, and I can attest they are all working over €110/ft2 and upwards.

But even if they were working off € 50 -85, no-one will, can, build at that price, so what relevance is it ? If they loan you €165k, and then ask for a cert of completion, but you're in fact only half way through building it, then what ? The figure the bank uses is for their purposes: it won't do anything in the tender process or get it actually completed.

Is €110-€120/ft2 a turn key finish with all client items covered?

DOCARCH

sheff the ref wrote: »

I am sorry but the banks work on a baseline of €80 to €85 per square foot for mortgages....

I think 'baseline' is the keyword there...that's what it is.

If the banks see anything less, alarm bells ring as to whether or no the mortgage applicant can build the house, or get the house built, properly.

The banks are not suggesting that it should only cost €80 to €85 per square foot.

893bet

Price for septic tank install and percolation (6 18m trenches), + 3-4 soakpits for rainwater and associated pipe work. All labour, materials etc included

5300euro+ Vat (including septic tank which is 1000 euro). I supply stone.

Pretty happy with that to be honest.

(please note it is a very simple septic tank install so prob one of the cheapest in the country!)

galwaytt

JamesK23 wrote: »

Is €110-€120/ft2 a turn key finish with all client items covered?

No, basic finishes inside, no kitchen. Sanitary allowance would be meagre, so most people would forego them and buy their own.

Wegian

galwaytt wrote: »

No, basic finishes inside, no kitchen. Sanitary allowance would be meagre, so most people would forego them and buy their own.

Galwaytt,
I have a few queries for you, if you have a few mins..

What would typically be included in a Builders Finish? (by extension I suppose I am wondering what is not included)
What kind of specs would need to be provided for an accurate tender?

- Insulation Specs, Cavity size etc
- Heating technology
- Window types, Dble/Triple Glaze etc
- Roof finish - tiles / slates
- Exterior finish, Stone etc

Thanks!

Woodcliffe

Ok Lads im a QS,

I am currently building my own house at the moment. 4,100 Sqft Im not sparing anything,

Underfloor heating, geothermal, BER rated A2 House, Nap Plaster Finish, polishing system,

my total cost is €65.00 a square foot for the house and a 800 sqft garage built incl that price but with less insulation.

All i did was shop around. shop around when buying materials and labour. look up alternative methods than the usual method. just because the guy down the road put in hollow doesnt mean thats its your only option.

Tefral

Woodcliffe wrote: »

Ok Lads im a QS,

I am currently building my own house at the moment. 4,100 Sqft Im not sparing anything,

Underfloor heating, geothermal, BER rated A2 House, Nap Plaster Finish, polishing system,

my total cost is €65.00 a square foot for the house and a 800 sqft garage built incl that price but with less insulation.

All i did was shop around. shop around when buying materials and labour. look up alternative methods than the usual method. just because the guy down the road put in hollow doesnt mean thats its your only option.

Direct labour? As a QS, im sure your heavily involved? I'm a QS myself and I know I can do it much cheaper than the average even just from knowing different trades and suppliers but the average Joe wouldn't be able to get that price.

caddy16

Woodcliffe wrote: »

Ok Lads im a QS,

I am currently building my own house at the moment. 4,100 Sqft Im not sparing anything,

Underfloor heating, geothermal, BER rated A2 House, Nap Plaster Finish, polishing system,

my total cost is €65.00 a square foot for the house and a 800 sqft garage built incl that price but with less insulation.

All i did was shop around. shop around when buying materials and labour. look up alternative methods than the usual method. just because the guy down the road put in hollow doesnt mean thats its your only option.

Where are you based?

galwaytt

Wegian wrote: »

Galwaytt,
I have a few queries for you, if you have a few mins..

What would typically be included in a Builders Finish? (by extension I suppose I am wondering what is not included)
What kind of specs would need to be provided for an accurate tender?

- Insulation Specs, Cavity size etc
- Heating technology
- Window types, Dble/Triple Glaze etc
- Roof finish - tiles / slates
- Exterior finish, Stone etc

Thanks!

- Insulation Specs, Cavity size etc - Depends on what your BER calls for, but A3 as completed package
- Heating technology - Simple: stove, rads, MHRV - depends on your BER calcs.
- Window types, Dble/Triple Glaze etc - uPVC/Alu triple
- Roof finish - tiles / slates - std cement slates
- Exterior finish, Stone etc - std nap plaster

galwaytt

Woodcliffe wrote: »

Ok Lads im a QS,

I am currently building my own house at the moment. 4,100 Sqft Im not sparing anything,

Underfloor heating, geothermal, BER rated A2 House, Nap Plaster Finish, polishing system,

my total cost is €65.00 a square foot for the house and a 800 sqft garage built incl that price but with less insulation.

All i did was shop around. shop around when buying materials and labour. look up alternative methods than the usual method. just because the guy down the road put in hollow doesnt mean thats its your only option.

I admire it you've achieved that, but I can't see that covering materials on any job I've been on in recent years, let alone finishing.

And that figures includes paying all contractors, VAT, Co Co contributions, the various Certs, connection fees to ESB etc etc ??