I do not really have much to compare this with when it comes to the UK. I once bought a set of UPVC double glazing back in 1995, that was 5 windows and 1 door and it cost £1500, the fitting and quality was poor and I paid up front for it. In Belgium we bought 7 aluminium windows, a garage door and a front door. One of those windows is a sliding door that is about 3 metres wide. The whole lot cost 16,000 euros and we paid something like four months after fitting, no deposit or any form of security. It was quite worrying not being asked for any money. They waited until the last few bits were complete before sending the bill. Mind you they did make their money. We also got tax back, it is part of the incentive to become more energy efficient.
The roof, however, was a far more taxing affair to deal with. We had to secure borrowing and to do that we needed to hire a solicitor and go through a broker, it was just like getting a mortgage. More importantly we had to get an architect in to do the plans and give us advice.
We held a meeting once we had identified a suitable architect, he was recommended although I am not sure why. During the meeting we discussed a number of crucial objectives such as: timing of how long it would take, planning permission, fees and overall cost of the project. All of our discussions were utterly pointless, whatever we said it was either ignored or agreed with and later ignored. As an example, I stated that the cost of the project should come in at no more than 25,000 euros and I asked if this was possible. What the architect should have said is no, what he did say was oh yes it will come in at around that price. The architect's fees eventually were about 4,000 euros, this is a ridiculous 20% of the cost of the project. We did not know this at the time and have learnt our lesson, but 9% is a more common figure. The legal costs were around 1500, but that related to the borrowing being arranged. I cannot remember how much the planning permission cost but this was another screw up by our architect.
When our plans were submitted the architect did not take pictures of the surrounding area or highlight that of the estate of around 100 houses, almost 25 had pitched roofs. So amazingly enough the planning authority in Leuven said we could not build our roof as it was not in keeping with the local area and in addition we could not have solar panels (something we were considering). Our neighbour directly across form us, less than 30 metres away has a pitched roof, so why were we being declined? The neighbour next to her had solar panels on her garage roof and the houses in the surrounding area had stacks of them, another strange decision. Anyway I ended up marking up each house on the estate with a pitched roof and then took it to the architect and said just show them that. This he did and we got our permission (still without the solar panels). I must add at this point that when we called into the town hall for advice, the quality would vary depending upon who you spoke to and indeed what time of day it was. It seems to be a common trait that you don't generally get the same answer twice and therefore my instinct is not to trust what I have been told. In fact the best thing to do is to get them to write it down and sign it off, they then backtrack and make sure they have it right!
The next phase was getting the quotes from the builders, again we held a raft of meetings with several builders to outline our requirements. Any quote takes two weeks to produce and bears no resemblance to any discussions that you may have held with the contractor. I have no idea if this is the case with UK builders. In my experience I have known people to be able to estimate there and then not to wait for two weeks. What inevitably happens is they forget what you have discussed and then have to go for another two weeks whilst they re-do the quote. There is a silver lining to this cloud, which I will get to. The quotes varied wildly between each builder and of course each was using the best quality and construction techniques. We discussed them with the architect and he advised us on the various offers. Eventually we chose one, which was around 19,000 euros but did not do everything that we wanted. In essence it would be a shell with no plasterboard or electrics installed. It also did not include the brickwork for the gable ends, we had to get a separate quote for that. More of that later.
The timing was all shot to bits, this was due to weather and workload of the builder as well as the delays with the plans having to be submitted again. The original timeline was for the work to take place in Jul but in the event it was late August. I had taken time off work to be there and for most of the construction I was not there, more delays. The work took around 3 weeks to complete and I had to harass the builder to turn up once the gable ends had gone up. It was like having two large unstable sails on the house and the flat roof had been compromised.
The gables ends took about a week to put up and I humped brick and blocks from the ground up a rather rickety lift and onto the roof, whilst our brickie did the work. We did not benefit financially from that, the price was fixed, something that has both advantages and disadvantages. The good thing is that it is never more unless you significantly change the requirement and even then it is reasonable. It can, however, end up far too much if it has been overestimated. This happened with the tiling in the bathroom which took around half as long as he expected, we got ripped off here and we made our displeasure known. It was an extremely hot August and toiling with these bricks in the sun was quite something. I have to say the view from the top was also quite impressive.
I had to go back to work for the next phase so I missed the joy of seeing it go up. The roof is made of a wooden construction with essentially 4 triangles running the length of the house. The first triangle is the one form the ridge of the roof to the sides of the house, the big one. Two are one each from each side going in maybe a metre. This way you have no supporting structures spanning the main space and getting in the way. The last one was along the ridge and connecting each side together. I have drawn a rather crude diagram below.
Now the thing that most people dread is when the builder starts to deny all knowledge that you had agreed to do a particular bit of work and that it was included in the price. In our case in involved the removal and disposal of the roofing felt and the installation of a floor. Thankfully we had a written and signed contract that included both of these things and they duly carried out the work without fuss. The architect earned some of his money by being on hand and carrying out inspections. I have to say in this respect he was very good. He made sure the floor was of a decent thickness and questioned and changed their construction when needed.
The things that needed to be changed were:
- Insulation in the gables, it needed to be thicker (more cost).
- The floor needed to be thickened up (more cost).
We ended up with a 5 x 7m space, my man cave. The loft was insulated but not fitted out for electrics or with plasterboard. I will do a separate blog on that one as it was some effort to do that. We had a loft with three windows and one hole in the floor for the stairs when they were installed, again another time with that one.
Once again the lessons from this are get a written and signed contract, get quotes (including more than one architect) and then make sure they do the work they have signed up for. The loft is a great space and it was not long before An was eyeing it up for alternative uses...
Photos to follow.
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ReplyDeleteGreat Post. very informative blogs.
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