How to estimate the cost of building work
Method 1 – Square metre rates
To estimate the cost of building works published ‘square metre’ rates can be used, as referred to above. An example of this is the RICS Building Cost Information Surveys of Tender Prices. This provides the mean, lowest and highest prices in £/square metres for works of different character.
From 1 April 2024 the Comhairle Building Standards service will be using a minimum cost of £1,872 per square metre for new one-off housing, based on the total floor area of the dwelling. This is based on the lower end of the BCIS inter-quartile range of new build property and have adopted a single square metre rate for domestic property, rather than a split between ground and first floor rates as formerly, as this is a simpler calculation and better reflects the rates given in the BCIS table of rates.
It should be noted that this is only to determine a minimum cost estimate for a property with a basic specification. It is acknowledged that will be a number of dwellings that will exceed this cost and to which a higher cost estimate should be applied.
Method 2 – Submission of actual tender costs or cost breakdowns
Actual tender quotes or full cost breakdowns can also be submitted to support estimated projects costs. The submissions will be examined by building standards and accepted where they have been priced using representative market rates for material and labour costs.