Building an Extension – Professionals You Need In 10 Easy Steps: Out to tender
Step 7 Out to tender!
So, to recap so far, we have completed the following
1. Introduction
3. Cost Plan
4. Design changes & meet the budget
5. Schedule of works or Bill of quantities
Send the tenders out
We are now in a position to get the tender documents and send out to tender to the contractors so they can start putting costs to the items contained within the schedule of works.
How long is the tender period?
The next decision is how long do we give the contractor to price the project?
Ideally as much time as possible, we would allow a very minimum of 3 weeks and up to 5 weeks as a sensible time to allow the contractors to achieve the best prices for materials and get costs back from their supply chain of electricians and plumbers for instance, they will need to send out to tender for all trades that they do not do themselves and of course the specified materials
Its also worth bearing in mind that the contractor will more than likely be working full time during the day and will need to spend evenings and weekends pricing all enquiries up.
Are we loosing time whilst out to tender?
No, not at all, during this period it’s quite easy to feel like lost time as no doubt you will want to get work underway as soon as possible, however this time is very valuable to get everything in place prior to the contractor being appointed and starting on site.
Several tasks can be completed within this time, for instance
Choosing materials such as wall tiles, floor tiles, kitchen, bathroom fittings & paint colours. If you plan to supply these items to the contractor we will need to ascertain how long these materials will take to be delivered to site, we don’t want them delivered too early unless there is somewhere safe to store them from any damage.
It is very important that materials do not turn up too late, the contractor will arrange their labour around when you tell them the materials will come to site, if the labour arrives on site but your materials have been delayed you may end up with additional costs being applied for by the contractor.
We can provide a detailed procurement schedule to make this task a lot easier, a sample document is available to view – Detailed procurement schedule
Next let’s look at step 8 Review and adjudicate tender returns
