Building costs. Jan 2023

How many in your family mate? 2000sqf is a sizeable house to be fair. In order to try and save a few quid I'd be reducing that size and making the bedrooms smaller. Bedrooms really don't need to be massive. We have 2 kids and the house is 1550sqft and it's probably too big. Reducing your by a few hundred sqft could save big money.

Yeah it would be close to home I’d be wanting to build. I’m not fully there yet, still want our house move and sale to go through, and I’m just checking this out.

Direct labour, with a number of trades in the family I’m hoping to make some savings but I expect these to be eaten up and we’ve had to revisit our kitchen plans to save money there

You were also never getting a house built for 250k unless you were doing work yourself or never paying VAT

some may find this interesting, when we got our mortgage we gave a figure of €2105 per sqm so I understand why the Architecht says it would be difficult to come in under 400k

Mod Note: I have removed attachment - happy for you to re-post without the architects details.

has anyone any current quotes or what the average price per square foot is?

By the time building rates come down , the majority of homeowners won’t be able to afford to get building work done.

We are in a bungalow and looking to do a job in our attic in West Dublin. Job will be Remove roof, new stairs, add two dormers, increase overall height by about 2ft and put two new bedrooms, a new bathroom and a small office up there. The space is 35sqm. All planing has been approved.

Pre Covid our quotes were:

Builder 1 €87k

Builder 2 €98k

Builder 3 €133k

Builder 4 €154k

Going to start trying to get new quotes in the next few months and I don't know what to expect.

Based on that quote you are more like 4k/sqm for new build and 2k for retrofit.. Thats worse than some of the quotes I got in South county dublin and I would have said they were high..

You going for a seriously high spec??

Your price just seems very high even considering you are including things like driveways, garden etc that I wouldn’t be as we will be living in the house before any of them things will thought about.

The below is what we have done, partially done or solid quotes for

Planning (incl all architect fees to completion, legal and esb connection), Foundations (including garage), Blocklaying, Roof, Windows, Plastering (to completion ), Plumbing (to completion incl Heat pump but excl. bathroom ware), treatment plant , MVHR,  Electrician (to completion) Carpenter (just some basic stuff like temp door frames, studding for pocket doors), Ceilings (metal + slabbing) Kitchen+utility (incl. appliances), Stone on one exterior wall, Insulation (floor, pumped cavity, attic), airtightness.

Currently at €1,372 per sq metre (265 sq metre house). Stairs and floor finishes are probably the biggest things not accounted for, bathroom ware isn't and footpaths aren't or labor for pipe work for hooking up to treatment plant. Obviously nothing for gardens or drive. Solar also not included. Some aspects of the garage that were hard to separate are included though (foundations, wiring and plumbing for instance) but some garage are separated out and not in these figures. I have put a lot of my own time in also which isn't accounted for :-).

Considering raising 100 per sq metre is approx 25000 of a spend, I think 100k will go a long way in whats left which would leave us under 1800 per sq metre at a stage of being able to move in, possibly even less. Our original target was 1600 per sq m to a stage of moving in (not necessarily everything finished).

In my opinion the price is still very high. Is access to the site a problem?

Out of curiosity is the existing house a detached house? Have you looked at a cost to demolish it completely and build a new house?

Just at planning stage here and thinking about doing the build as cheaply as possible and getting as much done as possible from savings before going for the mortgage, we have planning for a large garage and we might just build the house now and build the garage in let’s say 5 years from savings but would it be more cost effective to build the garage when we have builders on site etc

Do whatever suits yourself. If i were building a garage id be insulating it etc and heating it. Id be future proofing it for home office use. You never know what will happen in a five or ten years. Id also be putting in a wc.

Bungalow will be cheapest. No scaffolding except for roof maybe and even then trades can put it up themselves. Yes you have extra foundations but blocklayer will be working off ground floor all the time. Carpenter will not have to come put in joists on first floor before you can continue with blocks. Plumber will have to come fir underfloorheating to plumber again before it's plastered and slabbeb

The difference in foundations is minimal a couple loads of concrete there will be no difference in the labour to put in foundations very little extra in digging or site lay out costs. Ya maybe 5-600 blocks extra to ve laidbon foundations but fairly straightforward

If its a fairly straightforward build and you are going for simple finishes i wouks expect that for a 2K sq foot bunglow builders finish in the 350-380k mark definitely sub 400k.

My son is starting to build soon. He is going self build, its not a plain bungalow but not overly complicated either. His QA costings are 280k for a self build, his engineer is coming in at the same price for the bank.