“Planning ahead” is the key here, as with pretty much every other part of the project. In this case you will be planning ways of keeping the whole of the build process as efficient as possible. - In terms of time, cost, waste and by minimising unforeseen problems.

Every single action or decision on a building site has an implication of one sort or another. - There is usually a financial implication to every decision you make at the planning stage. - Some of them will be to your advantage, but some of them could, (without you even realising it), cost you a lot of money.

Ok, in these examples I am possibly “over blowing” the figures, - but I am just doing so to make a point:

Those three little “hiccups” (and there could be dozens more similar ones during a large house building project), just added £2600 to your budget.

There are just too many different areas where you could save or lose money on a major project for me to be able to list them in this section. – As I said earlier, just about EVERY action you take during the planning and building stages will have a cost implication.

 What  I will try to do is to give you some “pointers”, which, if you take them “on board”, should help you to be a bit more aware of the potential effects of each decision you make.

I would recommend getting at least 3 quotes for every section of the work. - This should give you a broad enough “indicator” of whether or not one quote is too high (or too low!).

You need the quotes to be “comprehensive” and to cover EVERY item that you expect that sub contractor to include in their work. – If it doesn’t you will get hit with invoices for “additional work”. – Be as thorough in the preparation of the quotes as you can. – If you don’t think you can adequately prepare the paperwork for this, think about asking and “Estimator” or “Quantity Surveyor” to draw up your “quotation” paperwork for yo, based on your drawings. – It may cost you up to a few hundred pounds, but could save you thousands in the long run. (You will find both Estimators and Quantity Surveyors via the Trade Directory section of this site).

Get fixed price contracts signed, and get the Contractors, or Sub Contractors conditions firmed up as tightly as possible, so that they can’t keep coming back asking for extra money for “this and that”. – Add clauses if possible, so that they may be required to pay a penalty if, due to them not completing their work on time, you incur costs in other areas of the project.

If you are supplying the materials it is up to you to make sure you get everything there for each sub contractor, at the right time, or you could face claims for “standing time” (3 brickies and 2 labourers standing waiting for a brick delivery could be costing you around £80 / hour – If that went on for a full day it could cost you £1600!)

You can save, or lose many thousands of pounds with your choices of materials and suppliers over the full contract. - (it might be worth you also reading the previous section on saving money whilst designing). Choose carefully and make sure that you get at least 3 “competitive quotes” where you can.

·         £1 / ton saved on stone by going to a different quarry can save you hundreds of pounds.

·         A few phone calls to all of the concrete suppliers in your area could save you £7 - £10 / cubic metre on the price of your concrete. - This could mount up to a few hundred pounds savings overall, - for exactly the same product! (Note:  be careful about incurring “part load charges”. – Some suppliers will quote a low price for “full loads” of 6 cubic metres, and forget to mention (it will be written in the small print somewhere), that whenever you get a “part load” to finish a pour off, they will charge you something like “half a cubic metre for every metre not carried”. - This could mean you paying (if you are very unlucky) possibly £300 for 1 cubic metre of concrete on the last load of every concrete pour that you make on the job! If you make, say 8 “pours” that will add up to £1800, - for what? – Nothing! – Try and get agreement for part load charges to be waived after the first full load of each pour).

·         Choosing a brick at £250 / 1000, that maybe your “second choice”, rather than “your favourite brick” at £450 / 1000 could save you a total of £3,000 - £4,000. - The same principal goes for roof tiles.

·         You may think that you need to “specify” clay drainage “because it’s the traditional way we do things”. You usually don’t, - and plastic drainage is a heck of a lot cheaper! – Check with your “Designer” and if necessary the Building Regs dept before you make your decision.

Again those are just a few examples of possibly hundreds of things you need to make sure you “pick up on” as you go through the project. – Basically before you buy anything, - “check the alternatives and read the small print”

Will you need security? - If so, you’ll probably need fencing and a gate to get in through. - Which will be cheaper? Hiring the fencing, or buying it? – This will depend on how much you need and how long you will need it? – Check both prices, remembering that if you buy it you will probably be able to sell when you don’t need it anymore.

You are going to have to get all the materials to the place where they are needed on site.

Will you need form up a temporary “hardcore drive” to drive all the delivery wagons and other vehicles over?  – If so, would it be worth making your access route along the same route as the drive will eventually be constructed (so the stone is not wasted)?

A few trucks driving over untreated ground after a bit of rain can soon turn it into a quagmire! - A couple of loads of 100mm clean stone (laid after you have taken the vegetation soil off), should give the vehicles a fairly solid base to drive on. – If a vehicle gets stuck in boggy ground you could find yourselves having to pay to get it towed out AND with a bill from the haulage company for wasted time and possibly damage.

Theft is a great problem on building sites.

If you make a claim on your insurance you will often find you have to pay the first £500 or more of the claim. – A couple of claims on a job could cost you a lot of money. A “lock up” could be a good investment. – Just give thought to your “site set up” to make sure you can keep valuable materials and tools secure

You will need a lot of water during the construction process. - Pretty much from “day 1”. Where will you get it?

You may be lucky and have a water supply on site. - If not, you could apply for your main supply to be connected to your boundary as a temporary supply. - If you do, you can use fix a “stop tap” in a locked box, to which you could connect a hose to run around the site.

However, for whatever reason, you may not be able to get mains water at the start of the job, so you will need to find another economical solution:

A water storage tank is one option, which you will hire in for as long as you need it. – The problem is that you also need to have deliveries by tanker to keep it filled, it can become very expensive (and to my mind should be avoided on a project such as this if possible).

Another option is to have a word with your neighbours. - If they are friendly they may be happy with, maybe £20 a week to let you connect to their outside stop tap. – Sounds good at the start, but if the contract drags on for a year or so, that water bill could reach over £1,000. (Be careful not to “fall foul” of the Water Authorities here – In “metered water” areas the owner pays for every litre of water used. “Building water” may incur different charges to a normal domestic supply. In other areas you may be required to pay a fee to the Water Authority for using their supplies on the site. – Check before you start)

Possibly the 2 cheapest ways to provide “building water” would be:

1) See if you can get a couple of old empty 45 gallon oil drums, then borrow or buy 3 or 4, 25 litre containers (if you are lucky, you may get both these free from your groundworker). - You can now keep the water “butts” filled yourself from your home tap, bringing them to site as often as they are needed (again – check with the authorities first).

2) If there is a water main in the road near you site, you may be able to approach your local Water Authority to see if you can hire a “stand pipe”, which you can connect to the main, - from which you can then run a hose (if and when it is safe to do so) to fill water containers for the site. - You will pay a deposit on the stand pipe, plus a set weekly amount for the water.

You will need to dispose of waste, - and this has become a very expensive task.

Anything you might normally think is waste, but that, with a bit of thought, you find you can actually use on site somewhere will help you save money (possibly a significant amount).

Waste skips can cost up to £200+ each. - You may need up to a dozen on a “substantial” project, so saving 25% of your waste could save you £600+.

You could “reclaim” bricks which get scattered around the site. - Clean them up, and use them on the job. Any broken ones pile up to use in the driveway or under a patio.

See if anyone wants your leftover timber: Put your spare timber at the entrance to the site, with a sign saying: “Please help yourselves to this timber”. Or, If that is not a good idea 9for whatever reason), see if the Local Council allows you to have fires on the site, and burn the excess timber rather than skipping it. – Another option would be to see if you can sell your leftover delivery pallets. - Or better still; get the supplier to take them back once you have emptied them.

Use large skips (if room allows). - They tend to be better value.  - Fill the skips carefully, so that there are no unused voids created by you chucking a temporary door or something similar in which creates a “bridge over a void” and cuts the capacity down significantly.

If you have leftover concrete, get the excavator to spread it out thinly rather than leaving it in “piles” which later have to be broken up and can fill a skip. If you spread it thinly, you can probably use it later for driveway or path formation.

Order carefully: An extra half hour spent on “checking your calculations” for the amounts of materials you order, could mean that you don’t have to throw as much away (concrete being one good example, bricks, blocks and insulation being others).

You may be better off buying some of the smaller items you need to help you through the project. – A generator may be a good investment as long as you can keep it safe. - You could sell it at the end of the project. – Floodlighting is cheap to buy. - Small tools may be cheaper to buy than rent, and again, sell if you don’t need them later.

Off hire plant as soon as possible. - Put pressure on your sub contractors to finish with items of plant as soon as possible. £75 a week (+ VAT which you can’t claim back on a Self Build project) can soon mount up.

Softwood frames are cheaper than hardwood. - Hardwood, these days is usually more expensive than PVCu. - White PVCu is often cheaper than either “mahogany” or “light oak” finish. 

Try and stick with “standard sized” windows (i.e. the sizes which are listed in the brochures) if you want to keep costs down. – Hand measured / handmade window can be more expensive.

You could make the biggest savings of the whole project here: - I will deal with kitchen design in later sections, so make sure that if you are on a tight budget you take a look at those sections.

These can be nearly as substantial savings made here as there can with kitchens.

I suggest that you read the section on “Bathrooms” later in this guide.

You can pay from £15 to £750 for ONE internal door.

Just bear in mind that when you choose one door that you like, which costs £50 more than another (which you also like), that you may be about to add £500 to £1000 your budget! (once you buy the 10 – 20 doors that you may need).

If you were to £200 (rather than £100 for each door), and you choose ironmongery at £40 per set (rather than £15 / set), you could be adding around £2500 to the project cost.

The standard heating system of “a boiler and radiators” is normally the most cost effective.

You may want underfloor heating. - If so, downstairs is usually quite a lot cheaper than upstairs, so maybe you could use underfloor downstairs and radiators upstairs.

Other newer and unusual heating systems can be great, but can easily add a couple of thousand pounds or more to your budget. – (You also need to balance the cost of installation with running costs. – A system may cost more to install, but you may recoup the cost in a couple of years if it is cheaper to run).

There is usually a wide choice of these two items available at most Builders Merchants. The prices vary hugely.

From 4” “pencil round” softwood, to 9” Solid oak, there can be a difference in price of a few £’s per metre. On a full “new house” or “renovation / conversion” project,  you can get through hundreds of metres of both skirtings and architraves,-  so “£1 a metre extra” can mount up. – Measure up how much you will need before you choose which style you want. – You can then quickly work out the cost of each option.

Labour: Many Self Builders and Renovators do the decorating themselves. - I would only recommend this if either you can produce a good quality finish, or you need to save money ( a poor finish will reduce the end value of the property). - BUT, doing it yourselves can save you £2,000+ in labour costs.

Paint: I personally tend to buy the thick “obliterating” paints for new buildings. - They are more expensive than the thinner paints, but can work out cheaper over all. How? - because whereas you may need 3 coats of a cheaper paint (which means 3 x as much labour “input”), you can often get away with one “full coat” and a “light top coat” with the obliterating paints (anyone who works in “specifying paint” will probably “shoot me down on that one, saying that you should always use a “mist coat” plus two top coats for new paintwork. – My response? – I have built many houses over the years, and using one or two coats of good quality paint has not caused me ANY problems!)

The list above is in no way complete. - There are many other ways to save money as you build.  – Topo many to try to list here.

If you bear in everything I have mentioned on this page, you could save many thousands of pounds on your project.