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Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 4:16 pm
by Stranger
Hi all. Can anyone advise a good supplier for a paving of driveway in York? Has got a quote from one chap but £85 per sq.m. + VAT seems to be too expensive.
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 4:19 pm
by TheRockConcreting
How bigs the job?
If its 60-80sqm then imo the price is ok
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 4:25 pm
by Stranger
It is around 60 sqm but after reading of quote discussions here, I doubt that this quote is reasonable.
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 6:39 pm
by lutonlagerlout
for a proper job I would be wanting that and more all day long
does the quote include kerbs and drainage?
cheers LLL
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 7:15 pm
by Stranger
lutonlagerlout, thank you for your reply. quote doesn't include drainage(additionally 250). last quote I received 15 min ago was 70 per sqm and no VAT which means almost 50% difference in price. sounds much more realistic in my opinion.
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 8:13 pm
by mickg
what paving block are they quoting you for, brindle or tegula for example as in top of the range or the starting price for block paving ?
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 8:37 pm
by Stranger
mickg, tigula, does it seem completely unreal? It is 21% difference in price without taking into account VAT. Bearing in mind that the last chap is a contractor it looks good to me.
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 8:57 pm
by lutonlagerlout
there's loads of "contractors" out there
the quality of the work is the most important aspect
I cant do tegs for less than £100 per metre +vat in the dirty south,including drainage
waste,wages etc may be higher down here
ask to speak to recent clients,not just pictures
I have a list of 15 clients all happy to speak to prospective clients via email or telephone
we won a job on monday on the strength of this
good luck
LLL
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 9:17 pm
by Stranger
lutonlagerlout, thank you for your advise to ask for his references. I will definitely do that. I understand that running of ltd is more expensive than being self-employed contractor especially but £100 per metre +vat ... "Dirty south" is full of reach people 
Thank you guys for advising me.
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 10:49 pm
by mike builder/landscaper
I'm from North Yorkshire and I would be charging £90/£100 pound per mtr depending on the size of the job
Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 11:52 pm
by williams
Add the material cost up yourself. It's not hard and generally in a specific part of the country everyone will be paying the same. The public truly believe we get a 'trade price' reality is that it's not much less than you would pay, certainly not enough to be huge amounts cheaper. I know through experience that only very large accounts get big big discount, that said I'll give an example.
Tegula for me 18.87+ vat was what I most recently paid! generally though I always get quoted low 20's plus vat, and generally it's Travis trying it on?
Anyway, I had access to account prices of a 100million plus company if I had large areas. I was quoted 15+ vat for 80mm tegula about 3 years ago, my personal prices were 26 ish however that was for about 500m!
There's no such thing as 'oh they are getting the stuff cheaper' which I hear weekly, no what they are getting cheaper is half the dig out and less than half the base which is usually crushed, of course on paper they are digging out to 300mm (yea right).
Oh and try one pass using a crappy old wacker not 6 passes in layers with a quality diesel!
So add your prices up and see what's left and see if you think that what's left is reasonable for how ever many people for how ever many days.
There's only one way to make a job cheap and that's to cut corners and I assure you there's lots to cut.
Day in day out I'm quoting against people who are doing the job for a couple of hundred quid more than it costs me to do, of course I know exactly how they are doing it, more so when I find out who it is. Try getting that across to the customer though, tbh it insults me some of the idiots I'm competing against! We are not doing the same job!
Sorry for the mini rant :p it's just very hard to compete with clowns which believe me to and extent I think everyone has to.
That said 70 isn't too cheap IMO but is on the cheaper side potentially and could well be too cheap, but 85 plus isn't too dear, depends on how straight forward the job is and what's involved.
Best of luck 
Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 12:32 pm
by lutonlagerlout
^^ my thoughts exactly williams
LLL