Evening all New here so please be gentle. We are thinking about having a two storey extension to the rear of our house. Trying to keep costs down as much as possible, my question is would I realistically save much cash if I dug footings and drainage trenches myself or not? Many thanks
Of course it would. When I do my own digging, I do it by hand with a pick and shovel and distribute the earth around my property ... so no diggers and no skips. When I have had it done for me, I paid for digger rental, workers, skips, etc. and then it took weeks before the garden damage from the digger covered over. I paid in money, stress and frustration!
That's easily manageable ... even with footings down to a metre depth. Make sure you have your trenches inspected and that you cast your concrete as soon after digging as possible or it risks slumping if we get bad weather. Then you're into a right mess with more digging and possibly even boarding/shuttering.
Thanks a lot for that rogerk. Don’t have that bigger garden to loose the soil, what would be cheaper/easier slips or a grab lorry?
Don’t forget dig is at least 1m deep 600mm wide, the spoil may just go in 1 skip ( allowing for bulking) I’d go for grab
I have successfully got rid of unwanted earth by advertising it on Freecycle and Freegle. If you're lucky, your timing may be right for someone looking to do a bit of landscaping and wanting the very earth you're trying to get rid of. Two skips cost about the same as one grab lorry for the same amount of stuff to remove, and both are pretty expensive - even for uncontaminated earth. If you have to go down the path of skip/grab lorry, then try to negotiate a really good deal, firstly because it will be uncontaminated and secondly because you'll only be needing it for a day of loading (bearing in mind that most skips are tied up on a building site for months at a time, so a day is great for the skip company.
Self dig saves gym fees too!! Skips are quite a bit dearer than grabaway if you have a lot of gear to get rid of but you have to factor in plying the landing area or accepting damage to it and the time clearing up. In your case 2m x 4m with basic minimum is going to be 8 x 1.0 x 0.45 x 1.3(m to yard) x 1.5(bulking) gives 7 cube yards. You'll have some surplus from the drains and topsoil strip too
Thanks a lot for your helpful reply’s. Second question, bearing in mind that I a PSV Engineer so therefore have no knowledge of building houses, is there anything else I can do myself to save cash?
A lot of us on here are DIY, so never did an apprenticeship or learned a trade. In other words, we're self-taught. In my case, I have dabbled in almost all aspects of building, and have a very full portfolio of projects involving many things that I'm not so proud of and others that I'm extremely proud of. We all started somewhere, so I'd encourage you to try your hand at the easier stuff first and then tackle progressively more complex stuff as you learn more skills and gain more confidence. I fully accept that I can't plaster to save my butt, but I am perfectly happy to try my hand at everything else. Go for it, and good luck. There are many on here to share their advice and encouragement, so just ask!
Without sounding arrogant, the best thing to save you money is to know and accept your limitations, and don't try to steamroller ahead thinking it’ll be fine without listening to reason when you may be putting yourself in danger and cost you money in the long run, IE omitting the employment of a structural engineer to design your calculations and just buying a second hand RSJ off eBay, wiring the extension yourself then expecting an electrician to sign it off for you, cobbling together hop ups, packs of celotex and trestles rather than pay for scaffolding, tiling the roof yourself then finding you have a deluge of waterfalls coming in, etc ad infinitum. By all means have a go at non life threatening things, such as laying and fixing floor joists, some non crucial blockwork/brickwork areas, plasterboarding, building stud walls, laying chipboard flooring, labouring for all the various trades, tiling your kitchen and bathroom, even fitting your kitchen provided you get professionals in to do the gas and electrics....... But use common sense and accept when and where to employ people to do the work you can’t, or daren't.
Best savings you can make is to employ a good builder, don’t try a project manage it yourself if it’s not your area of expertise, just look at all the threads where simple builds have gone bad because of none trade or basic diyers have thought it’s a piece of cake
I fully intend to get a builder and all the various trades I need to get it done safely and properly, was just wondering what I could do myself to keep costs down. So having read various threads seemingly slagging off different types of findabuilder.com, what would you wonderful trades people say is the best way to find a decent builder?? Thank you
Whilst every builder can do footings i've always employed the services of a groundworker direct, i.e., somebody who just does footings and drainage, maybe a bit of landscaping, but doesn't get involved with anything above base level. Probably couldn't do it now but back in the day, doing the barrow work saved a few quid and getting a bloke who could dig cut the time down considerably.