There were a few things about the BoQ which struck me (as unusual). There appeared to be random items like bum guns and bog roll holders. However, other items we had discussed with him were not itemised: no house water pump, no house water storage tank, no water heaters for the bath/showers, no foil or foam for roof insulation, no insulation layer above the ceilings, no roof vents. Wow! So 3.9MB is “starts from”. Alarm bells were ringing. Significant reductions were going to have to be made. I was hoping to do this for around 3.5MB (parts and labour); then invest another million in furniture, air-con, kitchen and outside walls. The pool would be separately budgeted for at B550,000–B650,000. My budget for the entire project is 5MB. Although more funds are available if necessary, I have set myself this target and am determined to stick to it.
We called the architect (P’Menn) to discuss the plans and so I could ask questions. I had read that CPAC Monier tiles have a minimum pitch guideline of 17°. The reference house I mentioned earlier in the thread – which we liked the look of from a complex in Pattaya, and which we gave the architect pictures of to use as a reference – has a pitch of around 20°. Why not use that? This would reduce the peaks of the roof; thus saving on materials. And then cut the overhangs to, say, 70cm instead of 120cm. OK, not going to be a big saving, but every little helps.
Menn said that we can indeed reduce the pitch of the roof to a lighter 20°, but the result in the corners would be something like that above (which would be ugly), or a gable, which we don’t want. Menn stated that both reducing the roof pitch and trimming off bits of the overhang would, in any case, only deliver negligible savings. It would still be expensive.
The other thing that planar roof picture above screams out is that in heavy rains a lot of water is going to collect on that roof, making decent guttering with integrated drainage network a must. I calculate the linear length of the roof edges to be around 110m. We have been quoted B550 per meter for decent guttering plus installation. So that is an extra B60,500 to the roof cost just for cumbersome, damage-prone guttering – plus mandatory drainage interconnection underneath, that would have to be done during the slab pouring and underground plumbing stage. I don’t mind the rain dripping down without guttering to the back of the house (south), but the garden and pool area at the front (north) I want to keep free of mud.
In an earlier entry, I mentioned how I quite fancied a Colorbond roof that was mono-pitched to discharge all the rain towards the south, thus obviating the necessity of guttering. The wife hates that idea, for obvious reasons. It looks cheap. I then had to sit down with her and explain things that would have to be omitted for her roof to be realised: cost-cutting in the kitchen, sub-standard quality built-in dressing room, smaller-sized pool, etc. The dressing room is her main want, and this was my trump card. She has slowly come round to my idea, especially since Menn clarified all of my assumptions and stated that we could significantly reduce the cost of the roof. As readers are aware, the quantity of structural steel required for a light-weight roof are significantly less.
What troublesome customers we are! Yet another change. But would P’Menn be able to do a new drawing for the roof and deliver a revised BoQ for the Colorbond (or BlueScope, whatever it’s called here)? Here is the new drawing:
^ He provided us with a couple of new drawings for the roof. One was for a cross-section showing the underlying steel. Here is a planar view, showing a mono-pitched roof, sloping downwards to the back of the house (i.e. southwards). For some reason the sala still has CPAC Monier tiles. We won’t be building it, so it doesn’t matter.
^ And here is a new BoQ to reflect a BlueScope roof, with revised down structural steel cost. The BlueScope item in the BoQ appears to have PU foam in it, so that is an additional cost compared to the CPAC Monier item in the previous BoQ which had no foam insulation at all. However, the difference between the two roofs (CPAC Monier tiles = B1,082,000 vs Colorbond = B709,000) is B372,000. And probably way more when you consider all the other faff involved, like guttering.
I appreciate all the figures in the BoQ are indicative only, but as these general numbers are all we have to go off for the time being, decisions have to be made based on them.
A quick note on the architect. Menn is not an architect. Maybe he has training in architecture, but he is a civil engineer by profession. As stated, his rate is for B100 per sqm, which made him the cheapest of all the options we saw, but also the most eager and approachable. His rate includes an engineer’s signature from another engineer friend of his. We actually met Menn in relation to a different problem: building a stream-bank-bracing wall along the northern face of the house, which will be another lengthy thread entry. In total, Menn came to our house to discuss the build eight times. Tomorrow will be his ninth. He is delivering the final drawings. We paid him B30,000 for the work and B1,300 to print off the drawings onto paper. Only time will tell if this was value for money.