1. Do Your Research The more time spent at the early stage the better. Do you research in your local area. Find out who the planning authority is and what things they are approving and what they are rejecting (and why). You can find all this out easily online. Research as well what extensions have been built in your neighbourhood, be that your immediate neighbours and also houses like yours in your area. 2. Look at the Latest Innovative New Ways to Build Things have moved on in the building industry and your local builder may not be the best person to advise you on it so do you research and ask at the design stage as the opportunity to use such building systems may need designing into the build. There are many systems and solutions that make building your home extension much quicker, and therefore cheaper. For example SIP, ICF, or ARKPRO all do this and can save you a great deal on your project build, as well as creating a more energy efficient building. 3. Buy Direct and Act Like the Trade! You can save a great deal by buying the building materials for the build yourself direct. Act like the trade by remembering that the builders merchant want your business and ask for discounts. Remember to include for delivery and ask for terms, builders merchants are much more friendly places these days. On specific products speak to the manufacturers direct, even if they only sell through a distribution network they will often still talk to you and can confirm pricing an offer valuable advise. 4. Consider the Cost of Every Building Material yourBuildPlans can provide you with a detailed ‘take off’ for your build - a list of building materials and how much of each you will need to buy to build your project. Armed with this you can get costs for each of the building materials required for your project. But don’t just accept every price you are given. Ask for a discount, look at each product and ask (and search) for alternatives and ways in which each product can be bought or used cheaper. It sounds simple, but larger builders employ buyers and cost managers for a reason, you can save thousands by simply questioning. 5. Minimise Architectural/Planning Fees Some architects are amazing and can design amazing buildings that win awards. But their fees will reflect this and will probably be over-kill for your home extension project. Choose to use an architectural service (such as yourBuildPlans) that lays out everything that you need in order to design your home extension and the planning process. This can include planning application costs and structural engineer fees as well as the architectural design and survey. 6. Keep it Simple. If you want to minimise costs, keep the design simple. As a general rule, keep the angles and measurements of the design within standard formats and the costs of build are lower. As soon as you step outside this into different size formats, corners and curves, costs of build will increase. 7. Think about TAX Ask trades people if they are VAT registered. If they fall below the VAT threshold then they will not add 20% VAT to their services and you can save on labour costs. In addition some materials and services attract VAT discounts such as insulation, in addition to government grants in relation to insulating homes. If you are undertaking a self build project then you will be able to claim VAT back on your build, but save all this until the end of the project as you can only claim in one go. 8. Invest in Quality Professional Services As a nationwide architectural practice speculating in Home Renovation and Home Extensions we would say this, but it is true. Investing in sound planning advice and guidance right from the very outset will often save you money on your overall project. Incorporating many of the points here, your home extension design is integral to how much it will cost for you to build it and experienced planning advice helps to avoid costly mistakes and planning delays. 9. Recycle and Upcycle Sell what you don’t use, there is no need to waste most building materials. One scan on websites such as Ebay or Gumtree and you can see most building materials that you will need for your home extension project, its just a case of finding the right ones and the right quantities. There are even Facebook groups for reselling building materials. Not only can you use these resources to sell your left over materials but you can also source materials that you need and save money wherever possible. 10. Remove Weight from the Build As a design and build principle, if you take weight out of buildings then you will reduce cost. Not that is a broad principle and lots more factors play into it, but essentially that is a rule that should be adopted. It should be adopted from the outset right from the design stage. At yourBuildPlans we will introduce this concept as an option for any relevant Home Extension. For example, using a lightweight block system with a brick slip cladding system will look exactly like a traditional brick and block build but as the weight of the materials used is much lighter the build is much, much quicker. This saves on build time, save labour costs. Using such systems can also save additional cost on machinery and lifting gear, saving on overall 11. Pick Your Builder Carefully - Avoid Cowboys and Monkeys. If you don’t know a builder, most people then ask their friends for recommendations of local builders. If this doesn’t work you are entering the unknown. There are many local directories, rated builder websites, and local and national certified builder schemes. These help you, but always make sure that you check references and ask to speak to previous customers and review their work. One of the most valuable additional services that yourBuildPlans offer is our approved builder pricing scheme. We provide your drawings, along with recommendations for local yourBuildPlans approved traders who can then easily price for your project based on the plans that we have created. Its an additional service but one that can help you to choose the right builder in your area, and avoid the often costly mistake of cowboy builders. 12. Talk to Your Neighbours! Its good to talk. Especially to your neighbours when you are planning a home extension. It not only is a nice neighbourly thing to do that will help prepare your neighbours for the noise and disruption of upcoming building work but will also let them talk to you openly about your planned extension and any reservations that they have. Often many disputes that we see could easily be resolved by relaxed conversation from the outset. If a neighbour can see a design and is consistently informed they are less likely to cause any delays in your planning process, let alone the costs that naturally come along when neighbour disputes start during or after the build. 13. Take Time on Complete Design We often see customers rushing to have their building plans produced, often focused on just getting them to and through panning. Although, the yourBuildPlans service is fast and typically works on a three week lead time from enquiry and survey through to planning being submitted to the local planning authority we would always recommend that you take you time to consider the details of the design as mistakes made here, or areas that haven’t been properly thought through can cost you a great deal later on. Complete and detailed plans will enable you to take accurate measurements, if you are unsure use the yourBuildPlans Quantity Surveying service to give you a detailed list of building material quantities. This will help you to save on over ordering building materials. We can also provide more enhanced visualisations of your proposed build. These are really useful as they enable you to visualise the build much better than basic planning drawings. Good plans enable you to figure out exactly where plumbing and electrical points should be and to ensure you get floor levels and door openings just right. Take time to visualise in detail at the design stage and you will save a great deal on making changes when on site. 14. Project Manage Now this isn’t for everybody, but if you have the right mind and skill set project managing your build and can be rewarding as well as cost saving. In fact, it is often an easy role out from the very earliest design stage. You start with liaising with your Architectural Technician, price the building materials and liaise with building material suppliers, you then employ and manage your tradespeople, employing each trade directly will save you the project management margin that a building company would add. Use the yourBuildPlans project management guide to help you plan out the program of work and help to manage the tradespeople on site in combination with each other. 15. Think Logisitically Construction is a physical thing and involves lots of materials and people. That means you have to think about the logistics of each stage and how they work with each other. For example, if you have a tight site with poor access how are you going to get all the materials to site and where are you going to store them? Do you need to get materials that you won’t use until later on in the build on to the site earlier just so they can get onto the site before the build gets in the way and stops that happening? Think about this at each stage and in conjunction with each part of the build, spend time on this and you will quickly see how you avoid unexpected costs that wouldn’t normally show themselves until later on in your build. 16. Save on Brick Matching Use a service such as ExtensionMatch if you need to match bricks or stone for your Home Extension. Many people don’t think about the bricks until later on in the project and can then be hit with surprising costs. You will want your bricks to match your adjoining house brickwork so that it blends in, otherwise you extension may have a ‘bolted on’ look and stand out like an extension. As the brick industry has consolidated over recent years many bricks are no longer made so costly time delays can be incurred whilst the builders merchant try to find a ‘closest match’. The problem with a ‘closest match’ is that it still stands out, reducing the value of your Home Extension, and can often come from a brickworks miles from you building site, incurring additional transport costs. ExtensionMatch overcomes this and guarantees to match your bricks perfectly and will often keep the costs of brick matching down.
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