Build Cost Estimates

Budget is King

A few years ago, it was common for Planning to be the biggest barrier to whether a project could go ahead or not. Money was easier to borrow and finances generally came second to planning in the list of project headaches. Now, budget is king. Almost all of our clients are working to a budget and trying to get as much value from their hard-won pounds. We have a few tricks up our sleeve to help ensure your project is feasible from the outset and less prone to running over-budget.

Pre-Planning Build-Cost Estimates

The traditional process sees clients go through the design process, followed by planning, followed by building regulations and structural calcs. Only at this point can they approach builders and get some prices. If at this point, the builders’ prices are far over your budget, then its back to the metaphorical drawing board. In the worst cases, all of the design work needs to be scrapped, new drawings drawn and a the planning and building regulations process started again. This is costly and time consuming and incredibly frustrating. To combat this we like to produce a build cost estimate at the design stage. Because a design is only much use if it’s affordable, it makes perfect sense to try to get an idea of the approximate costs ahead of submitting the planning application and going ahead with building regulations drawings. This means the design can be changed if needed with relatively little cost and delay.

Feasibility Study

The feasibility study is also a good tool to help manage the budget. During the feasibility study, we aim to uncover the potential issues you might face as you progress with your project; things like drainage issues, flood risk and ecology. Knowing these issues up front, and the approximate costs for dealing with them, is helpful as it means you are forewarned and able to plan accordingly. Costs for third party surveys can easily be thousands of pounds at a time, so it doesn’t take long to rack up to a considerable cost.