An estimate is a financial document that displays the costs of all construction work, building materials, transport, handling, household expenses, etc. If a mortgage loan is issued for constructing a house, the bank will not accept the application for consideration without an estimate and an explanatory note to it. But this is not the only case when you cannot do without it.
Even deciding to build on your own, you cannot do all the work with your own hands – many of them require special qualifications, and some must be performed exclusively by licensed specialists and organizations. The contractor always wants to make the most of it, while the customer wants to save money or clearly understand what he is paying for. With the help of the estimate, it is possible to satisfy the interests of both parties.
Unlike the contractor, the customer does not always know how to construction estimating consultants work. A sample taken from the Internet or from friends who have already built may not consider the individual conditions of your construction site.
Without Cost estimator Services, you may be forced to do unnecessary work, overestimate the volume and deprive yourself of the opportunity to defend your rights. At the same time, the agreed document saves you from unnecessary expenses. If additional funding is required, the contractor will have to justify it.
Construction estimates are needed not only to defend their interests. It helps you understand how much the house will cost, how much each stage of construction will cost, correctly distribute your expenses, decide on the need for a loan, etc.
How to Deal With Overstated Construction Estimates?
The cost estimate is the initial stage of construction, the documentary foundation of your future home. It is designed to reflect all stages of the construction of an object under construction and even, if possible, predict certain changes in the cost of materials and work. A well-written, impartial budget is a clear plan that avoids unnecessary expenses. It should take into account everything: material resources and their volume, types of work performed and their cost, contractor labor costs, a list of equipment used in construction, the amount of time required to carry out work, the cost of other costs, such as garbage collection, etc.
Unfortunately, many construction companies that draw up an estimate for the customer with the cost of materials and their construction services often deliberately inflate the prices of some of the proposed buildings by estimating materials and their required amount. You can deal with this in a variety of ways. For example, you were checking the provided estimate on your own. With the advent of the Internet, it has become quite simple to compare the declared cost of materials in the estimate and on the manufacturer’s website. It should be noted that in this case, you should not get too suspicious and check the numbers to the comma with a magnifying glass. Often, the price includes the delivery of materials to the object or other logistics costs. It is more difficult to figure out the required volume of building materials independently. Here, of course, the help of independent specialists is indispensable.
How is an Estimate for the Construction of a Country House Made?
Today, many companies offer the services of professional Cost estimators Services. As practice shows, an estimate verified by a third-party organization is, on average, deflated by 10–20% of the initial calculations. An independently compiled construction estimate allows you to communicate with potential contractors more confidently and not pay for air.
On the catalog Projects of cottages website, we tried to calculate the approximate cost of building a cottage according to our project. Naturally, this price is approximate since everything depends on the materials chosen for the construction of the house according to the project. In our calculations, we relied on the most popular materials used for construction for this project. Also, you can always leave an online application for calculating the estimate of any project you like.
Last Words
Even if you are going to re-glue the wallpaper in one room, it is necessary to calculate the number of materials required, the costs for them, and the performance of the work. From my own experience, I know that the total amount does not always correspond to the calculations made – crumbling plaster may be found under the old wallpaper, requiring repair, and the cost of wallpaper, glue, and putty turns out to be higher than expected. When building a house, there can be a lot of surprises, and its cost will not be at all what you expected. A well-made construction estimate will help avoid unpleasant disappointments and imagine the upcoming costs.
