A-Z of Self Build Guides Project Manager: Hire Or DIY?

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1. Money is well spent on a project manager. It is easy to overlook the sequence and have to undo work to facilitate what has been missed which is an expensive and serious bug bearer. It is worth remembering the following golden rule of any project when planning it too. You have three main objectives, Budget, Time and Quality. It is incredibly rare to have all three in your favour. Work out your priorities. Do you need a Quick job done well? If so expect the costings to be higher. Do you want a quality job to a budget? Then expect to take longer sourcing cheaper material suppliers, contractors and possibly undertaking more work yourself. Do you want a fast job done cheaply? I suspect not because quality will invariably go out the window. I have undertaken an awards winning project which ran 50% longer than it could have but the results are excellent and costs were roughly two thirds of what they could have been with a shorter timescale. This was achieved by importing materials direct from producers and using my own labour as much as possible. It has been common for initial prices received to be excessively high when contractors see you are undertaking an exclusive development, I had tarmac laid for ?800 but the first cost I had was for ?3000 as a cash deal from someone doing it cheap for a favour for me.......My boreholes for the ground source heat pump were done for ?8250 not the initial ?20,000 another quoted... It all adds up quickly. It may be worth involving a quantity surveyor too, If you have no idea about building costs they should not miss any aspects of it and will enable you to understand your full financial commitment at a very early stage. This should help protect you from expensive surprises ( although not from unidentified extra work costs ). Just a few things to consider.

   Posted by Jon Maine on 10/10/2009 13:57:36

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