Why?
I just want to know if the price is reasonable.
Good luck with it.
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Very few builders are going to do price breakdowns.
I remember getting a quote for painting much of my London flat. Six grand. I then asked how many people and how long: him and an apprentice for a week.
Given that the apprentice would probably be on a couple of hundred quid a week, I couldn’t bring myself to pay someone five and a half grand for a week’s work (and this was over 15 years ago, when money had done kind of value).
Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
30 years ago, when we had the windows at the back of the house renewed and the rear wall re-rendered and a new garden wall built, we engaged a local civill engineering firm to manage the works. I think they charged about 15% of the contract value but they were well worth it. Not only was the engineer very capable and, um, ‘assertive’ with the builders and window suppliers but, more importantly, the builders knew the firm was able to put a good deal of other work their way so they (the builders) didn’t fuck them about. They submitted quotes and timescales and stuck to them.
Of course it might be hard to know whether, behind the scenes, the contract manager and the builders are actually hand-in-glove. They didn’t seem to be in my case though.
One of the things I do remember is that way back then even the most basic unskilled labourer was costed in at £100 per day.
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When Spending 15k its not unreasonable to want to know how long it wkll take and how many people will be there.
Just ring the bloke and ask.
Because of the shortage of tradies, it really is hard to know what you should be paying, but without a series of quotes you’re left totally in the dark. Along the way to getting those you will discover that no builder worth his salt ever just says “No.”…
Some will promise to show-up to talk about the job - the literal see-you-next-tuesdays - but they never do, and they’ll block your number on their mobile. The first time it happened was pretty WTF?, after that it became routine. It’s a big old house, and no self-respecting builder wants a big job that’ll tie them down for any length of time - they want to have dozens of unfinished jobs all on the go at the same time and to be being constantly chased by annoyed homeowners. WHY the fuck they want this is far, FAR beyond me, but they do.
The next stage do show-up, talk through the job, drink tea, suck air through their teeth, make notes and earnestly promise to get back to you… This is a mime routine that is also followed by blocking your number on their 'phone. You will never see them again - they’ll even start drinking in a different pub to avoid you.
Next on the devolutionary-scale also show up, suck teeth, drink tea, &c. AND do eventually get back to you with a quote! My favourite amongst these were the brickies who wanted £100,000 to re-point the house. These, too, obviously don’t want the job and want you to fuck-off and die, but they’re also stupidity-testing you, because if you’re that rich and that stupid they can REALLY bend you over and ride you like a brood mare…
By the time these various lessons had been learned, five years had passed, so when a builder showed-up here with a genuine can-do attitude, an ability to actually, physically look me in the eye, a few local recos and prices that were painful but not "Fuck-off-and-die" painful, we were broken, the house was broken, and so I braced myself and pulled my arse cheeks apart.
Sitting-down is overrated 
Oh yeah - cash is still king, if you get a quote, get a face-to-face and ask what the cash price is. Most of them like part payment in cash, so there’s some going thru the books, and some getting turned into their next hypercar…
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Just had quote for removal of existing garage and base, 2K.
Just need the builder to provide quote for new slab.
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Yay! Progress 
Couldn’t be arsed to read the whole thread but you could go wooden garage, you get some nice ones and a post and beam base wis an easy diy job
Not hard to diy the slab either tbh, need a couple of mates but done a few now and if they deliver the concrete is a breeze
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I can tell.
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To be fair his suggestion of DIYing the slab is probably a good one. It can’t be hard to find a few friends who would jump at the chance of fucking about with a rental cement mixer, a few tonnes of building materials and free beer/curry, when all the downside of a house in ruins is yours.
Pay for the destruction and removal, DIY the slab and have fun.
I know my limitations, not at all confident I would get it good enough
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Stay away and pay someone, Adam will always jump at a dodged DIY job 
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Wot? You mean a bit like plastering? 
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6x12m on a slope and needs to be square and level, yea that’s not a job for me.
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Better still, save yourself £2k - hire a large kango breaker, break the existing slab down into small pieces and use it for the hard-core substrate base of the new slab
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No but it is a job for a decent shuttering chippy. He would also do the re-bar metalwork. Then you and mates just do the concrete mixing/pouring.
I have done a few bits of concrete over the last few years, can potentially help, but the challenge is my back won’t do all the heavy lifting of the actual pouring these days.
Why fuck about with a little mixer and patchy uneven setting when Readymix is a thing?
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