Labour costs - Block paving sussex

[maryk]

I am contemplating a new driveway and paths around the whole house. Area to be paved is 185m2. In addition to the excavation to 200mm, there is also an area of 49m2 to be lowered by approx 300mm.

I have used the spreadsheet on this website to calculate cost of new driveway and paths. I had previously calculated the costs with my brother-in-law (who has his own building company) and materials costs were virtually spot on.

I have now obtained quotes from 3 specialist companies. After deducting material costs and cart-away, I find the resulting labour/overheads/profit hard to believe - about £62.30 m2 (inc VAT) for the cheapest quote. They have all said that it is about 2 two weeks work so this equates to a labour/profit rate of about £1200 per day.

Am I being ripped off, do the companies not want the work, or is this what I must expect to pay in the Sussex area?

Any advice or other members experience of contractors in this neck of the woods gratefully received.

[alan ditchfield]

Depending on the type of pavers used i would estimate a price of 12,500 to 15,000 inc VAT for a job like this, What was your cheapest quote and what type of paving is to be used.

[maryk]

Cheapest quote including VAT was £17742.50. Paving quoted for was Rumblestone although the price that I had sourced was Brett Alpha at £13.75 plus VAT per square metre.

[Tony McC]

Rumblestone is even cheaper than Brett Alpha - it's imported from Holland and sold in the south-east as a 'budget' or 'economy' alternative. I'm sure there's plenty that will disagree with me, but I have severe reservations about the colours used in Rumblestones.

The spreadsheet on the main website needs updating but it's not too far off track. Some prices have changed since it was last updated, and I can't recall if these can be modified on the sheet or whether they are 'locked'. I'll try to get a look as soon as I can.

You should bear in mind that, when I compile the price averages, they are just that: averages. Folks in London Village and the south-east are required to pay an excess due to the so-called cost of living, and this can be (and often is) as much as 25% more than the rest of us have to pay. 17,750 quid is roughly 15,100 excluding VAT, and that's around 81.50 per m² which is more or less bang on the lower end of the 'going rate' for the supply and installation of a tumbled block pavement in that benighted part of the nation: many contractors down there are quoting 80-100 quid per m², plus VAT.

[maryk]

Tony

Many thanks for that - I suppose I will just have to bite the bullet (maybe I should retrain in a new trade myself - seems to pay better than accountancy!!).

Do you think that Brett Alpha are a better quality than Rumblestones? I wondered why all the contractors were trying to push that particular block.

Excellent website by the way - at least it gives me some idea of vaguely intelligent questions to ask the contractors.

[Tony McC]

I prefer the Alpha - it's impossible to say such-and-such a block is better than.... because it's all subjective. If a block doesn't meet the relevant standards, then it's possible to say that Block A is better than Block B, but to be fair, most blocks meet the requisite standards, so deciding which is best becomes a matter of judging how they cut, how the colours weather, how they're packaged, and, of course, price.

Which brings us to why Rumblestones are being pushed so heavily by some contractors. They could supply Marshall's Drivesett Tegula at, say, 14 or 15 quid per square metre, or they could supply Alpha at 13-14 quid, or they could supply Rumblestones that cost them 10 quid and which they can sell at 13 quid, letting the customer think they've got a bargain while simulktaneously making a bigger profit margin for themselves.

You phone up Rumblestones or Euromin and see what price you can get those blocks for!

[maryk]

Interestingly, one contractor has said in his quote "if you have seen another block you like, they are all around the same price". However, he is the most expensive, took the least time to talk/measure up and then managed to calculate the area as 228m2 when the two others agreed with my measurement of 185m2 - his profit was probably therefore already built into the square metreage!

[Tony McC]

I'm always dismayed at the number of contractors that simply pace-out a job and then grandly proclaim it to be so-many square metres. I'll bet they're only right on 1 in 10 occasions: if that! And guess which side they tend to err towards?

I surveyed a job on behalf of Trading Standards towards the back end of last year. The so-called contractor that had ballsed up the work had told the client there was 83 m², but two other contractors had quoted 75m² and 77m², however the winning contractor had a lower overall price and therefore had been awarded the work.

I measured the work to be 66.7m² - the contractor objected and sent in his own surveyor who came back with 67.5m². According to the contractor, this "proved" I was biased and deliberately under-assessed his work. His surveyor and myself were within 0.8m² of each other, around 1%, which is pretty good going for any survey. Neither of us were anywhere near the 83m² his legs had computed, but, of course, that proved nothing. Unsurprisingly, he lost the case.

How many contractors carry out a 'reasonably' accurate measure when asked to price a residential driveway? How many use a tape and/or a wheel and record the dimensions? It'd be interesting to find out. If a contractor "measures" the job to be, say, 100m², and then gives a price of, say, 7,500 quid for the job, could they be pulled up by Trading Standards under the Weights and Measures Act if the job turned ouyt to be only 80m²? If a shop sold 4kg of spuds as 5kg, they could be prosecuted, so is it the same for driveway/patio contractors?