Do I need a Quantity Surveyor?

[montecristo]

I will be building a house and I'm struggling to understand what value a QS brings. I know they do the cost estimate, but trawling self-build forums, it is just as likely they'll mis-estimate as be spot on. And builders will just quote what they quote regardless. It's counterintuitive to spend more money just for an informational estimate. I've spoken to a couple of QSes and they were reluctant to link their output to real money savings - they position it more as providing a framework and maybe clarity.

Do I need a QS? Do most self-builds use one?

[montecristo]

CrgT16 said:

In our case there was a discrepancy of £450k between quotes and we managed to take another £250k out as it was overpriced. The QS managed to do this for us with our imput as well.

We will use a main contractor.

Are you saying the builder gave you a quote, you showed them the QS's estimate and then the builder cut his quote to match, is that how it works? DId the builder misunderstand the requirements first time around? Assuming you had multiple quotes, would that not lead to a 'right' price regardless of QS?

Thank you.

[montecristo]

CrgT16, that's helpful, thank you.

[montecristo]

I would appreciate that. Your profile is set to not accept emails, though, can I trouble you to PM me...

[montecristo]

jules_s said:

If the budget is what it sounds like - you might consider a PM/QS

Yes although it was hard enough getting quotes from QSes just for the QSing part. A PM at some point would be good - right now it's me pushing things from one stage to the next and since I don't really know what's meant to happen, I just make noises at everyone and hope something happens.

[montecristo]

Johnnytheboy said:

Get Stephen Fry in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnPy9inVnqg

No, I don't have anything useful to add to this thread.

You joke, but I saw that sketch as a child and it's still how I think of quantity surveyors.