Refurb with one contractor or many specialist?

[Lonoxe]

We recently moved house and have now lived in the new place for about a year so time to do refurb. What do people think about getting one single contractor to quote and do the whole job versus contracting separate pieces to specialist. Nothing structural required and I know there's more project management/admin/time involved in the separate specialist option but other than that, does it offer benefits like cost or better quality work?

Specifically we are looking to do work inside and out with the choice to select finishing for kitchen and bathrooms

Inside - New Kitchen, New bathrooms, Repaint the whole interior, make cellar usable for dry good (currently good condition, not flooded but a bit damp and hasn't been used in a long time so may need stairs, well windows, door and ventilation)

Outside - Upgrade soil pipe and install new treatment plant, New driveway (tarmac is bugged and would prefer gravel ~ 50m), new frontage gravel, some paving in places and general garden/grounds tidying ~ 1 acre

Car port/garage and decent provision to store a lot of wood for seasoning

Wishlist - solar panels and battery, heat pump and old stable renovation

All thoughts welcome, thanks

Edited by Lonoxe on Wednesday 22 March 21:51

[Aluminati]

How good are you at project managing ? You don’t have that many complex elements, so avoiding an MC’s mark up will give you much savings.

Finding decent subbies will be the key.

[Lonoxe]

Aluminati said:

How good are you at project managing ? You don’t have that many complex elements, so avoiding an MC’s mark up will give you much savings.

Finding decent subbies will be the key.

Thanks. I think I can manage project management well. So, you think there's no economy of scale in giving several work to a MC?

[GT03ROB]

Lonoxe said:

Aluminati said:

How good are you at project managing ? You don’t have that many complex elements, so avoiding an MC’s mark up will give you much savings.

Finding decent subbies will be the key.

Thanks. I think I can manage project management well. So, you think there's no economy of scale in giving several work to a MC?

It will be less an economy of scale, but an economy of efficiency.

when a trade doesn't turn up & disrupts another which they will it's you picking up the cost. With a main contractor that's his problem.

If you have a full time job think carefully if you can truly project manage it effectively. Refurb work always throws up problems that need decisions there & then.

[phumy]

If you go down the route of individual subbies you need thenm all to come within your schedule time and youll have to try to tie them down to a time, very difficult. It is doable i have done it but you do at your peril, it can work.

[bennno]

Lonoxe said:

We recently moved house and have now lived in the new place for about a year so time to do refurb. What do people think about getting one single contractor to quote and do the whole job versus contracting separate pieces to specialist. Nothing structural required and I know there's more project management/admin/time involved in the separate specialist option but other than that, does it offer benefits like cost or better quality work?

Specifically we are looking to do work inside and out with the choice to select finishing for kitchen and bathrooms

Inside - New Kitchen, New bathrooms, Repaint the whole interior, make cellar usable for dry good (currently good condition, not flooded but a bit damp and hasn't been used in a long time so may need stairs, well windows, door and ventilation)

Outside - Upgrade soil pipe and install new treatment plant, New driveway (tarmac is bugged and would prefer gravel ~ 50m), new frontage gravel, some paving in places and general garden/grounds tidying ~ 1 acre

Car port/garage and decent provision to store a lot of wood for seasoning

Wishlist - solar panels and battery, heat pump and old stable renovation

All thoughts welcome, thanks

Perhaps for a contractor if you aren’t living there / property empty.

If it’s working around occupants then that needs to be a series of mini projects, carried out in logical order by relevant trades to get best quality ‘ value.

[Lonoxe]

Thanks GT, phumy. All makes a lot of sense on the economy of efficiency/ chasing trade around as well as managing unforeseen issues. Benno, we'll be living here so you make a good point there.

I suppose a key concern is being able to spec everything into original costing at the outset for a MC. It is difficult as we don't know the precise finishing we want in terms of brand/cost/quality for taps, sockets, tiles, paint, kitchen, loo components, etc yet. Someone that allows us to buy our own material including kitchen supplier would be ideal. Are there such firms?

[Pedro25]

If you are going to PM this work in your own home and live there whilst the work is being undertaken, my advice would be to find a good highly recommended Main Contractor to programme and find all the other trades who will be needed. It would help greatly if you and the wife could decide on finishes etc. and confirm the same before the works starts, one watch out don't go to W**n for your kitchen, far too many stories in the press of how they fail to complete installs. As others have said don't underestimate the level of PM decisions that will come your way on an hourly basis.

[bennno]

Lonoxe said:

Thanks GT, phumy. All makes a lot of sense on the economy of efficiency/ chasing trade around as well as managing unforeseen issues. Benno, we'll be living here so you make a good point there.

I suppose a key concern is being able to spec everything into original costing at the outset for a MC. It is difficult as we don't know the precise finishing we want in terms of brand/cost/quality for taps, sockets, tiles, paint, kitchen, loo components, etc yet. Someone that allows us to buy our own material including kitchen supplier would be ideal. Are there such firms?

Absolutely, get a kitchen company out directly to measure up and propose a kitchen design / costings. Howdens will do this, just get a pseudo Trade account set up first.

Find an electrician, plumber, kitchen fitter, plasterer and tiler and you'll be away on pretty much all the jobs you describe

How old is the house - does it need rewiring?

[skeeterm5]

The other issue to consider if you go down the individual subbie route,.Are the individual jobs big enough to get a subbie to actual turn out and do the job?

A MC will sort this sort of issue out and as said by others your whole job can be left hanging if one trade decides not to turn up.

[bennno]

skeeterm5 said:

The other issue to consider if you go down the individual subbie route,.Are the individual jobs big enough to get a subbie to actual turn out and do the job?

A MC will sort this sort of issue out and as said by others your whole job can be left hanging if one trade decides not to turn up.

Of course they are, a kitchen fitter fits kitchens. A plumber will prep a bathroom, a tiler will tile bathrooms etc.

The drainage and a sewage treatment plant is pretty specialised. Ditto re driveway works.

Some jack of all trades are absolute masters of none...... so its likely either all subbed out with 25-30% contingency on top or possibly not to the standards you might aspire to.

[CrgT16]

For a better finished product you choose all the trades but it will take longer and more stressful. I built a house and used a main contractor. Knowing what I know now I wish I had taken some time off to manage it and choose my trades. I would have ended with a better finish, most importantly on the finish like plastering and decorators.

[Lonoxe]

Thanks guys. Quality seems to be better with specialists. But given how overwhelmed trade folks are with work, I wonder if it’ll be easy to get people for sun 10k gig where necessary. How is almost 200 years old (1830s) and thankfully doesn’t need re wiring

[agent006]

I found that your level of knowledge needs to be a lot higher when you're coordinating the trades yourself.
There will be decisions you need to make, and things you need to know as one trade runs into another. For instance, the plumber will ask you things that you'd never even considered, and the tiler will have been expecting something from the bathroom fitter that you didn't even know was a thing; and you'll be having to make these decisions on the spot at 8AM on a Tuesday morning with no idea of the implications down the line.

We did our previous two refurbs managing trades ourselves, and I'd not do it again especially with work so plentiful for them now. We got binned off for bigger jobs over and over again by all sorts of trades. Even small things like the plasterer going AWOL for a day can mean you have to do an awful lot of work to sort the schedule out again. They will try this sort of thing on with you as one-job-bob, and prioritise work for repeat customers (i.e. main contractors).