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Property Buying for Home Renovation continued
By arlene | December 5, 2008
But whatever you do, don’t underestimate the cost of renovation. It is a labour intensive business and labour costs money. A lot of work has to be undone before any repair work can start. Old paint and plaster has to be stripped away, old joinery removed. Structural changes mean piles of rubble to be taken from the site and dumped. New plumbing and wiring mean chopping into walls and floors which then have to be repaired.
Almost any major structural changes, rewiring, replumbing and changes to the facade of the building - including the replacement of windows - require plans to be drawn and passed by the local authority which is another expense and often means a long delay before work can start.
Of course you can do a lot of the work yourself. . . if you have the time and patience. Many of the skills of restoring and redecorating a home can be learnt as you go along but remember: mistakes are costly and time consuming. It might take a team of professional builders and decorators a few days to knock down a couple of walls, replaster and repaint; the same job will take an amateur months.
Another consideration is whether you will be living in the house while you are renovating. It is not much fun if you have to live for months moving from room to room, breathing in dust and paint fumes and stepping over rubble and building materials. Any structural changes requiring the demolition of walls, the removal of windows and doors and, especially, ripping out old ceilings, will cover the entire building and everything in it with insidious layers of fine dust. Nothing is impervious to it. It gets into cupboards, boxes, suitcases, plastic bags and under dust sheets. Brick and mortar dust is so fine it takes days to settle; no sooner has one lot been cleared away than another layer takes its place. So, be prepared to foot the bill to have every item of clothing and every piece of furniture cleaned when your renovation is complete. An industrial vacuum cleaner, available from most hire shops, will help you cope with the heavier dirt while you are working, making the final clean-up a little easier.
Another heartbreaking aspect of restoring your own home is the amount of work and money which is hidden. Pretty light fittings with dimmer switches and an artistic decoration and furnishing job will be admired by everyone, but no one sees the fortune in new electrical wiring chased into the walls, the hours of work in stripping old wooden windows and doors, the replaster job behind the paint and the new copper pipes supplying the water to the shiny new bathroom.
An idea of labour costs can be gained from the minimum rate of pay laid down by the Industrial Council for the Building Industry. Bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, plumbers, foremen and all qualified building industry artisans - except painters who earn a few cents an hour less - must receive a minimum of $3,00 an hour. In addition, building industry artisansstamp money‘ to cover contributions to pension, sick pay, holiday, medical aid and unemployment funds. This weekly `stamp‘ in most cases is R37,39. If the artisan is on the staff of a building contractor, he pays about $4,85 of this and the employer the rest. If he is a freelancer he pays the entire stamp himself- either way the customer pays in the end, which brings the weekly minimum to about $160. have to pay to their Industrial Council ‘
In almost every building industry trade, the artisan does not work alone - a bricklayer needs a ‘cement boy’, a man to mix the mortar and a ‘brick boy’ to make sure that the bricks to be laid are always at hand - so the wages of two good labourers who would probably be earning more than the minimum labourer’s wage of $1,20 an hour each plus $10,85 a week ‘stamp‘ money must be added to the cost of a bricklayer. This brings the total to about $280 a week. This is the absolute basic minimum cost of a week’s bricklaying, plastering, plumbing, carpentry, etc., to which must be added the influence of the current climate in the building industry. According to the Building Workers’ Union - even when the industry took a downturn - few, if any, building industry artisans will work for anything like the minimum wage. Good bricklayers are earning upwards of R50 a day so a good 50 percent can be added to the price of labour with a ripple effect throughout trade, starting with the unskilled worker. This means the weekly price of $280 would, in more realistic terms, be around R420.
If you decide to use a contractor for your renovations, he is entitled to a markup on the labour he provides which, in terms of a standard Building Industries Federation Contract, is at least 40 percent. The costadded to this figure. This gives a total in excess of R500 a week for each qualified artisan and the assistance he needs to do his work - in some cases a couple of labourers; in others, a labourer and a ‘mate’ who will be proportionately more expensive. So a plumbing, bricklaying, plastering, carpentry and painting team each working on your house for one week could cost you $2 500 before you lay out one cent on material. of transporting the workers must also be
If you supply the material, you will have to shop for it, fetch it or have it delivered. If the contractor supplies it, you will have to pay the full purchase price plus 10 percent for his trouble, regardless of what extra discount he might have been able to negotiate with the supplier.
Freelance artisans will, in most cases, be marginally cheaper than established contractors because, working on their own, they do not have to maintain expensive offices and staff, the cost of which is passed on to the customer. Because renovating an old house is often fraught with uncertainty — you might find, for instance, rotten plaster under wallpaper on a wall you thought was quite sound — it is not a bad idea to negotiate with the artisans you require on a price-per-job basis instead of paying them a daily rate. Human nature is human nature and even the best will not cut himself out to finish a job in four daysdays‘ wages for it. when he knows you are willing to pay five
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Topics: Contract, Course, Development, Dollar, International, Job, Land, Listing, Market |
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