Call for a change when hiring a contractor to build, extend or radically alter your home

The scheme will then wend its way through a planning process, which will usually be long and will, increasingly, necessitate employing a planning consultant.

The next step is to hire a structural engineer to do the structural calculations and check the design to make sure the scheme will work.

A build specification will then be prepared or, in the case of larger or more complicated schemes, a quantity surveyor will be appointed.

At long last a tender pack is ready and usually sent out to a variety of building contractors to prepare a price for the work.

At this point, the architect, structural engineer, quantity surveyor and planning consultant have all been paid their fees for work to date. Time and effort paid for. Happy days for them, whatever happens.

Tender prices are then presented by the various contractors, usually at least three, to the client who gasps at the submitted prices. What a shock. The costs are double those anticipated. How can this happen?

I can tell you why. In the last two years build costs have risen inexorably. To keep up with the cost of living and the shortage of skilled labour, wages continue to rise, then there is the fact that the cost of materials has shot up, not helped by the conflict in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, many designers are not in tune with real time prices and the clients are led into a sense of security from early predictions of costs given at the start of the design process.

The client must then choose to scrap the scheme or cut back to achieve something affordable. The poor old contractors bidding for the work are then faced with the prospect of the scheme not going ahead or having to reprice for alterations.

Don’t forget that days and weeks have been spent preparing a detailed costing, not only involving the contractor’s time but also that of numerous sub contractors.

All for the one in three chance of winning a job that may not go ahead. We are not talking about an hour’s work after coming home from site but some very complex and time consuming analysis, making sure no costly omissions are made before the ever thinning margin is added.

Nothing is paid to these contractors for what is a huge amount of work carried out speculatively. In most cases, it is quite a big cost lost, which is hardly fair.

I believe it is time that contractors are now considered part of the procurement team along with the other professionals.

My advice for those looking to hire a contractor is to choose your carefully, judging them as you would an architect, looking at past performance, inspecting past projects, taking up references from previous customers etc.

Most good contractors will be happy to spend time with you at this stage and their input at an early stage should be considered essential.

With no disrespect to the designers, they can guide on the practicality of achieving what is desired and so avoid costly delays and alterations during the build, make suggestions for detail changes to make the process easier and often more cost effective.

On top of this, the contractor can value engineer and advise on costs throughout the design process to avoid any pitfalls, while identifying site constraints affecting the design, build ability and, last but not least, avoid a horrible surprise at the end when a client is presented with costs twice what they were expecting.

So the messages are these: involve your contractor as early as possible in the procurement process, treat them as a professional and part of the team and let them work with the other professionals while paying a fair price for early involvement, which will more than pay for itself in the long run.

James Wimpenny, CEO Wimpenny Construction, Huddersfield, www.wimpenny.co.uk