Carpenter quotation for new unit

T

Tony

Hi guys,
Am about to start building a unit in Melbourne & have decided to go down the owner builder path (argh such joy......lol). Have been shopping around for some quotes from various tradespeople & i gave a copy of my plans to a carpenter for a quotation. He also said that he had a crew who perform various other tasks (eg. plastering,etc...). Anyway he emailed me his quote & it includes the following things & LABOUR ONLY.

(1) Installation of frame & trusses
(2) Installing windows, doors & i imagine everything else that a carpenter would need to do to finish a unit.
(3) Install a garage door with "Magic Eye"
(4) Install 10 mm plasterboard
(5) Install 2 skylights in bathrooms as specified in the house plans.

The total for this enormous amout of time consuming work is the small price of $41, 915. Once again this is LABOUR ONLY, but is GST inclusive (lucky me).

I called him back & queried the figures as they seems grossly inflated. I told him that another carpenter has quoted me $5,800 for all the carpentry which leaves a little over $36,000 for installing 2 skylights, plasterboards & garage door with "Magic Eye" (knew that Magic Eye was damn expensive......lol). Loved watching him try to squirm out of the one.

Very tempted to report him to HIA or some other body cause this cowboy gives other tradespeople a bad name. Where does one go to make such a complaint (not sure if he is a HIA member)?

Also i am in need of reliable honest tradespeople in Melbourne for construction of a smallish unit. I already have some tradies, but one can never have enough tradespeople to call upon.

Any assistance would be most welcome.

Regards Tony.

PS. I have a dream to either do a reno or a smallish development with experienced people off this forum. All of us working in tandem & using our skills to do most of the work ourselves & then selling hopefully for a profit. Then repeat the process again, maybe even allowing any newbie's the opportunity to join in the fun & learn off more seasoned investors.
 
Hi Tony

http://www.buildingcommission.com.au/bc/bc.asp

The Building Commission website has links where you can 'lookup' a registered builder, make a complaint, make an enquiry about all sorts of building issues etc

I believe you can also get contact details for builders in your geographic area

http://www.buildsafe.com.au/index.htm

Build Safe can supply you with kits of contracts for using with trades, and all sorts of handy info regarding trades insurances, your own insurances including construction and materials insurances etc

And at the end of the day, they do warranty insurance as well.

Make sure any trade you use on site has all the appropriate insurance including sickness and accident. Your comprehensive insurance may not cover you if a tradie has an accident on your site.

Also insist on getting their ABN and everything in writing before you start.

Remember - I costed the carpentry at Myrtle at $12 - $13,000, and estimated 8 - 12 weeks. After 16 weeks the carpenter still wasn't finished and had charged $19,500 in labour only!

By the way, once any individual tradesman exceeds $12,000, they must provide you with 6 years warranty insurance. Make sure this understanding is in writing before they start.

The plumber & electrician must have warranty insurance as part of their registration, but the thresholds are:

Registration if work more than $5,000, and
Warranty Insurance for 6 years if work more than $12,000.

Try driving around your local area and collecting the names of builders from sites under construction.

There are also companies which do specific parts of the job eg sub-floor and floor, walls & trusses, prefabricated walls, etc

The prefab stuff appeals to me. No materials lying around, curling up, getting water damage; all nailed into place in a day, roof on in a week, then at least you're working on a floor platform under a roof and less suseptible (sic) to vagaries of weather.

I'm starting a carpentry course at Croydon TAFE in August. Basic stuff, wall frames, decking and pergolas. No, I won't be for hire as a carpenter, but at least I'll have the confidence to do fit out and some other bits as well. It's not the big parts of the job that consume the money, but the fiddly bit 'n' pieces and final touches.

Corbels is a pricing guide available by subscription only, but it gives current costings which you can use as a benchmark against the quotes you receive. For example, to prepare and repaint Myrtle Cottage inside and out including windows, trims, doors, eaves, etc (prime, paint & repaint)would have cost around $15 - $17,000 using qualified tradespeople.

Tony, take a little time to type out your specifications, too, not just hand out copies of the plans. Your plans will specify eg AS1684 Timber Framing Code, AS3500 Plumbing Standard, etc, but go a little further and say 90mm Bull Nose Pine architrave exterior, 90mm Bull nose primed MDF interior, Sanitaryware provided by owner etc

That way you can really compare apples with apples. Remember, people don't read things - plans or specifications, so make sure everything has lots of white space, dot points, check boxes or whatever, so there's no 'Oh, I didn't see that you wanted a roof on it, that'll be extra!' stuff happening later, after you've signed.

Good luck

Hope to meet you at the Melbourne Social Gathering

Be there or be square (AS2003 BCA Clause (3a part ii)

cheers

Kristine
 
By the way -

You don't need a registered 'builder, but you do need a registered 'carpenter', who will have a 'limited' builder's license!

same website as before (I think)

Kristine
 
Tony,

I dont see how you can complain about an overinflated quote.
Just say to the the tradesman "youve gotta be kidding -
thats way too expensive - seeya"

Its probably a case of he didnt want the job cause he has too much on or the job was a pig or the customer was a pain in the butt (not referring to you, just generalising).

Tradesmen do it all the time. Ive done it plenty of times myself over the years but not to that extent.

Years ago when i was a solo subbie i quoted a job for an electroplating factory in Sydney's west, the place was covered in years of chemical/ acidic gunk - it stunk and we had to rough in cables over the steaming acid baths in the roof purloins..etc.... Anyway, i came to a price for the job as if it was a normal factory of $7k and then tripled it to $21k it cause i didnt care if i missed out on the job.

To my surprise a couple of hours after i faxed the quote i received a purchase order. I rounded up a few ....ummm......associates - offered them $100/hour and we knocked that stinking job over in 2 and a half days. I pocketed about $10k after wages and material in a few days only because no one else wanted it and the electroplating company had to get it done. I had to throw away my work clothes after tho:D

To give you a different analogy. Say you walk into a car dealership to get a price on a car you know is worth say $30k. You ask the sales guy how much? and he says "$80k". You just laugh and walk out but you can hardly complain to the MTA.

You can complain about an over inflated invoice but not an over inflated quote.

Whatever you do get a fixed price quote with no variations. Other wise they will screw you mercilessly as in Kristine's eg with the carpenter.

Also a tradesman hates nothing more than a customer who tells him his job but doesnt really know what they are talking about.

You can pick 'em in 30 seconds flat by the way they describe things to do with the project at hand. Tradesman have their own way of describing things (slang or jargon) that is particular to that trade. When a potential customer gets that "in" terminology wrong or doesnt know it and talks like a text book or a tafe course but thinks he knows everything, the tradesman will react accordingly and over quote, be a pain or just wont be interested in the job if they have a bit of work on.
 
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Hi Brains

<Whatever you do get a fixed price quote with no variations. Other wise they will screw you mercilessly as in Kristine's eg with the carpenter.

Also a tradesman hates nothing more than a customer who tells him his job but doesnt really know what they are talking about.

You can pick 'em in 30 seconds flat by the way they describe things to do with the project at hand. Tradesman have their own way of describing things (slang or jargon) that is particular to that trade. When a potential customer gets that "in" terminology wrong or doesnt know it and talks like a text book or a tafe course but thinks he knows everything, the tradesman will react accordingly and over quote, be a pain or just wont be interested in the job if they have a bit of work on.>

Yes, I agree with this.

However, what is an owner builder to do? Sit back and say nothing - after all it's your money, Ralph - , watch with increasing anguish as the tradie blithely sails along doing as they please, then when the insurance assessor comes along and fails the work it's the owner has to pay someone else to correct the work (not always easy to do if other work has been done following the faulty work), get into heated discussions and risk the tradie dissapearing from the job when they have been contracted to do the work, or perhaps engaging a project manager (registered builder) to supervise the work from the beginning, which is going to cost professional fees, probably more than if the owner builder simply put the entire contract out to start with?

It's not a matter of trying to sound like a smart a-se. It is your job, your money, your reputation, and ultimately your liability.

If an owner wants to 'build' their own building, whether that be rumpus room extension or complete house, surely they are entitled to get a job which not only complies with all regulations but which will not be a millstone around their necks for the next ten years? Remember, your liability on the work may be limited to ten years, but the insurance will only cover you for six years, so you legally stand alone for four years on the work which has your name on it. And as an owner builder, your name is on all of it.

As with all things in life, there is no easy answer.

My way of dealing with all this is to try and get as much education as I can.

For the most part, the surveyor, draftsman, Council officers and tradesmen have respected my wish to learn, understand and be involved in all processes of the work. There has been only two blokes who have tried to pull the wool over my eyes. Everybody else has taken the time to explain to me what they are doing and how they intend to do it, what regulations are imposed on the job and how they interpret the standards in so far as this part of the job requires.

Since the first job, Tony, I have now discovered more tradespeople who are on my 'wavelength' and with whom I would be very happy to work in the future. It's all a learning process for them and for me. For example, when the plumber signed off on the Certificate of Compliance, he very happily said 'I don't think I've circled so many items on any other Certificate before!'. Myrtle was a big job for him, he has since done the plumbing for my daughter's unit as well, and I'll happily engage him for the medical centre, too.

Ditto the electrician, the cabinet maker, and a few other tradesmen who I didn't know last year but now consider good and reliable people who will return a quality job. Also, I have found it important to listen to the casual comments and watch the body language of the men as they work around each other. It becomes easier to pick the outsider, the one they don't trust or respect, no matter how polite they may be to him. The honest blokes don't like the bs blokes, or the ones who slack on the job or who are obviously spinning the job out so they can charge more from the owner.

I found the builder's registration course an excellent source of information, not just education. Listening to the blokes at tea times and how they talked amongst themselves, gave me more insight into this industry than simply reading the regulations ever could. If you can find the tradesmen who the other blokes want to work with and who are respected for the work they do, you're halfway there!

Cheers

Kristine
 
When requesting a quote from tradesman be clear in what you are asking, even with the smaller jobs such as carports and pergolas. Getting plans drawn up is cheap and ensures that all tradesman are quoting the same thing. If things are unclear and open for interpretation extra is normally added to cover possable changes or requests!
Most carpenters in Victoria are not registered. This is not to be confussed with qualified. The reasons are varied but namely due to the fact that they are not required to do so when working for a builder(unless builder is restricted ) as the builder covers the insurance on the work when completed. Another major reason is that the registration requirements are similar to that of a builder.(expensive and time consuming).
 
It's also a good idea to write all the tasks down.

Helps ensure you don't miss any & again is good for that Apples vs Apples comparisons....plus it helps you sort out how much of it you can do yourself :)

Cheers,

Aceyducey
 
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