The Tender Application Stage For Builder prices - How To Plan For The Design Process Of Your Home Extension - A clients guide.

Assuming that the client wants to move on to the on site build stage as soon as possible you should be considering submitting the draft construction design to tender from selected local builders during the Building regulations application process.

Most builders will only price and submit a formal tender price on the full construction scheme design. This takes effort and time from the builder selected and some now are suggesting a charge to cover this time (usually by very busy and in demand builders).

As many builders require to obtain prices from their trades, the process can be very time consuming and most main contractors / builders approached will take between 4 to 6 weeks to price a scheme.

You should allow 4 to 6 weeks for this process.

Many homeowners are confused by how many builders they should be approaching. Some say the more the better but this will create an awful lot of abortive work and effort for the unsuccessful tenderers.

My recommendation is to obtain 3 to 4 tender prices which will mean approaching 4 to 5 builders as almost certainly 1 will drop out but will not tell you until the end.  Anything more than 6 is unnecessary in my opinion and could be counter productive if the tendering builders get to know how many you are approaching.

Clients can usually obtain tender prices themselves from local builders or most home extension architects and designers will offer this as part of their usual or ancillary services for a modest fee. The choice is yours.