Estimating services – can they save you time and money?
When Steve Jacobs, a planning consultant and carpenter from Bedfordshire, began his self-build journey he realised he couldn’t do it alone.
He is no stranger to the building trade, but as a first time self-builder looking to create his perfect two-bedroom house, he decided to cut out the hassle and turned to an estimating service to support him.
Estimating services can help provide an accurate picture of material costs and help you to set your budget from the start. A service of this kind can offer a report with a full offering of estimates, project breakdown, materials required, potential labour costs and a delivery/work schedule or just the essential estimation needed to keep your project running smoothly.
Steve used Build Aviator which he came across after a visit to his local Jewson branch. It offers estimations on products and costs as well as on all aspects of labour required. With Steve’s experience he was able to do some of the first and second fixes himself, but the support of Build Aviator services and its team helped to put Steve in control of his project.
Steve explains: “The first step was presenting my drawings of the house to the team. From these, they were able to provide a SAP-approved design, a bill of materials and a quantity take-off which got my project off to the best possible start.”
The SAP service provided by Build Aviator includes registered construction details and U-value calculations pre-approved by the Local Authority Building Control (LABC), ensuring building inspections run as smoothly as possible.
He added: “With the bill of materials, I was also given a report that determined which products I would need and how much these products would cost. It was great to have this at the start of the project so I could manage deliveries to site and keep an eye on my budget.”
Steve managed to get off to a flying start. He said: “The Build Aviator team was always just a phone call away, but they set me off to such a good start that I didn’t really consult them again until the build was complete!
“When the Building Control Inspector arrived on site to mark the project as complete, I told him that the project had been built to an SAP approved design and he was hugely impressed, which was a brilliant feeling.”
Use our quantity calculators to estimate the number of blocks, bricks and tiles you will need for your project.
Elliott Thomas, from Build Aviator, says that there is no doubt that an estimating service can save you cash and time in the long run.
He said: “We’ve seen many of our self-build clients coming to us for help to generate those all-important cost estimates. Not only are they pushed for time but it’s a worry for many customers that they over-order or even under-order on their materials – which can cause more expense and delays to a self-build. They really don’t need that. This is where Build Aviator can help self-builders save time.
“Understanding how build costs are calculated and being able to trust their accuracy is so important in any self-build. Having support through the SAP assessment and offering product advice can help with that all-important energy rating. A self-builder needs to know that they are compliant at every stage of their build process and our partnership with the LABC can help ensure they meet the required regulations.”
“On average Build Aviator’s estimating services start from as little as £75 (ex VAT) but prices vary according to size and scale,” adds Elliott.
“The accuracy of our estimating services and the access we have to our Jewson network for building supplies means we can deliver to sites across the UK. Our self-build essentials pack has everything a self-builder needs, including our new cloud-based software program (Build Aviator Lite) which can generate estimates and removes all that extra admin.”
For more information visit www.jewson.co.uk/buildaviator and find out more about the self-build essentials pack here, or go direct to the Build Aviator website here.
