Small Drive Extension

Psycho Sonny · 17 Jul 2021 at 06:07

sigma said:
That’s a ridiculous increase, especially as a % of the original quote! There’s no way a competent person could measure it wrong by that amount.

The cost of materials has went up.

To give you an example. Log cabin last year was £7k. This year it's £14k. We are talking the exact same log cabin from tuin.

So if you had a quote from someone to build a log cabin and then decided to go ahead with it a bit later on your are paying double.

£500 on £1500 IMO doesn't sound excessive given the current situation. But I do understand most folk on here are clueless about how much prices have been effected.

It's actually made me delay 2 projects I was going to get done this year as original budget has doubled if not tripled.

The people thinking he's trying it on clearly don't understand the current situation. He likley quoted using his last buy price for bricks and then when he went to re-order they had likley doubled since then. He probably bought the bricks for all the driveways originally many months ago.

Delvis · 17 Jul 2021 at 07:36

Psycho Sonny said:
The people thinking he's trying it on clearly don't understand the current situation. He likley quoted using his last buy price for bricks and then when he went to re-order they had likley doubled since then. He probably bought the bricks for all the driveways originally many months ago.

And that's the tradesman's fault.

I agree, £500 in the grand scheme of things isn't terrible considering things have changed price wise....but you'd hope he would mention this when saying he needs to charge more now.

Psycho Sonny · 17 Jul 2021 at 08:41

Delvis said:
And that's the tradesman's fault.

I agree, £500 in the grand scheme of things isn't terrible considering things have changed price wise....but you'd hope he would mention this when saying he needs to charge more now.

How so?

Say the price doubled overnight. How is he supposed to account for this?

He won't have placed an order until OP has said he wants it done. Then when he goes to order it's went up.

It's not as if he will have gotten a quote from his supplier. The supplier will have a price that changes with every shipment.

How was he supposed to know the price would go up between him checking the suppliers website and OP saying they want the job done?

It's like me quoting you to build a custom pc. Then finding out cost of CPU and GPU from ocuk doubled overnight.

He also did mention materials have went up. So he has been up front about it unless I misread.

dale1uk · 17 Jul 2021 at 09:03

I think the main issue here is that they have started the job, got half way through, and then have informed the OP that the material costs have increased so they need to increase the cost of the works.

Had they approached the OP prior to any work being started then that would be understandable, however backing the OP into a corner by starting the job then telling them about the increased costs is pretty poor

norm · 17 Jul 2021 at 09:08

I think if you're happy with the finished job then an extra £250 to the contractor wouldn't go amiss, I don't think they are in any way trying to rip you off, the quote seemed very reasonable to be we begin with and material prices have gone up.

Matthew.M · 17 Jul 2021 at 09:25

The raw material price increase really is dire and no one really predicted this.

Personally, if I was 100% pleased with the finished product and workmanship, I’d meet them halfway to maintain the relationship for future projects.

Delvis · 17 Jul 2021 at 17:50

Psycho Sonny said:
How so?

Say the price doubled overnight. How is he supposed to account for this?

He won't have placed an order until OP has said he wants it done. Then when he goes to order it's went up.

It's not as if he will have gotten a quote from his supplier. The supplier will have a price that changes with every shipment.

How was he supposed to know the price would go up between him checking the suppliers website and OP saying they want the job done?

It's like me quoting you to build a custom pc. Then finding out cost of CPU and GPU from ocuk doubled overnight.

He also did mention materials have went up. So he has been up front about it unless I misread.

Fair enough then

Scrutinize · 17 Jul 2021 at 20:51

Cost increases of materials really is crazy at the moment. The big groups are hedging supplies and this is in part easier with their regionally standardised house / development types, but they still have some exposure.

Small contractors are suffering badly especially where they cant hedge against exposure due to variety of material types on each job and not all are taking deposits to forward order materials. Ie could be a different paving type on each job they do so no common materials. Furthermore, they often have limited local suppliers they use on account who in turn will have varying cost increases in their supply chain.

Personally, I would say what they have quoted originally was a really good price. If they supply proof of material cost increases then it would be fair to pay this element or a good portion of it. Some contractors would have this in their T&Cs anyway but evidently yours operates on a simpler framework.

Good tradespeople can be hard to find at the best of times. It's worth being fair with them.

kitkat9933 · 17 Jul 2021 at 20:54

Psycho Sonny said:
How so?

Say the price doubled overnight. How is he supposed to account for this?

He won't have placed an order until OP has said he wants it done. Then when he goes to order it's went up.

It's not as if he will have gotten a quote from his supplier. The supplier will have a price that changes with every shipment.

How was he supposed to know the price would go up between him checking the suppliers website and OP saying they want the job done?

It's like me quoting you to build a custom pc. Then finding out cost of CPU and GPU from ocuk doubled overnight.

He also did mention materials have went up. So he has been up front about it unless I misread.

The problem was he said it after pretty much finishing it. He should have ordered or tried to before starting and then at that point telling me imho and I would have said yes no problem.

Waiting for him to come finish when he gets the last lot of bricks in.

I’m probably just going to take him at his word but offer £1800 cash to offset the cost.

Delvis · 17 Jul 2021 at 21:05

kitkat9933 said:
The problem was he said it after pretty much finishing it. He should have ordered or tried to before starting and then at that point telling me imho and I would have said yes no problem.

Waiting for him to come finish when he gets the last lot of bricks in.

I’m probably just going to take him at his word but offer cash to offset the cost.

See the final product first

But good on you of you do add some on.

Currently doing my garden and it's really hard to budget costs ATM, not sure how people do it in the first place in all honesty

kitkat9933 · 17 Jul 2021 at 21:31

Delvis said:
See the final product first But good on you of you do add some on.

Currently doing my garden and it's really hard to budget costs ATM, not sure how people do it in the first place in all honesty

True but he’s not black mailed me by stating he wouldn’t finish, that makes me thinks me think they are a little bit more honest.

Psycho Sonny · 17 Jul 2021 at 21:55

kitkat9933 said:
The problem was he said it after pretty much finishing it. He should have ordered or tried to before starting and then at that point telling me imho and I would have said yes no problem.

Waiting for him to come finish when he gets the last lot of bricks in.

I’m probably just going to take him at his word but offer cash to offset the cost.

Well it's been chaotic over the past year. Supplies have been completely decimated and prices have went up loads. I've personally had to delay 2 projects as I'm not paying triple the pre-covid price. We are talking tens of thousands of pounds in total have been added on so £500 is literally nothing in the grand scheme of things with what has happened.

He's probably learnt to order first or as soon as the customer has confirmed or at least to check or budget for increases now.

sigma · 17 Jul 2021 at 22:04

Psycho Sonny said:
Well it's been chaotic over the past year. Supplies have been completely decimated and prices have went up loads. I've personally had to delay 2 projects as I'm not paying triple the pre-covid price. We are talking tens of thousands of pounds in total have been added on so £500 is literally nothing in the grand scheme of things with what has happened.

He's probably learnt to order first or as soon as the customer has confirmed or at least to check or budget for increases now.

£500 is not literally nothing. It’s literally 1/3 of the original price. A poor workman if he wasn’t aware prices were going up over e last year and didn’t at least warn the OP. Anyway the builder also said they measured wrong, which is shoddy and not the OPs fault.

kitkat9933 · 3 Oct 2021 at 13:21

In the end he just asked for the original amount but in cash, so pretty happy. Would have given him more but he just asked that when he came around.

extension looks good as well

Buffman · 3 Oct 2021 at 19:26

kitkat9933 said:
In the end he just asked for the original amount but in cash, so pretty happy. Would have given him more but he just asked that when he came around.

extension looks good as well

Where's the finished pics?

dlockers · 3 Oct 2021 at 19:33

Result. Now report him to HMRC.

kitkat9933 · 3 Oct 2021 at 19:48

Buffman said:
Where's the finished pics?

There

needs cleaning though still.

gailjon · 4 Oct 2021 at 10:39

Excellent result after all the hassle with costs, etc. It really neatens up the front of the house.