In these current times what is the renovation costs per square meter ? and what can you expect for this money? This is NOT to promote anyone in this business but a GENUINE QUESTION for info please.

HI Goohbur

Like most things, I guess it depends on the 'quality' of materials, fixtures, fittings, etc., and the standard you want to achieve.

I'll ask around a few contacts I have in the trade and see if I can get some guidelines to post here.

Cheers
Chris

I to would like to klnow Chris and I accept what you say about what it is we want to pay for so it could be quite difficult to get a general cost ?

I've just heard back from a contact who has been in the building trade here in Bulgaria for many years. His comments:

"
Renovation costs are very similar to New Build Costs - sometimes a renovation can actually cost more than a new build! Currently we source a variety of builders from across BG for our builds. Our current builders charge from between 380-450 eum2 for a renovation / new build (rough guide). This charge includes project management. Other small local / municipality fees may be on top. This would for a good quality professional renovation."

Chris is correct that it is very difficult to put a price on renovation as with old houses you never know what is in front of you,most times when we would demolish something to get a good foundation or a good place to start constructing again,it was very difficult to know where to stop and the more you demolish the more it costs to re-instate.With new work you can tell exactly the scope of works and the material that is required,I have been a Joiner for 30 years and have worked in many countries and when I did renovations I would to the best of my ability have given a price and always a footnote to state that if anything unforseen would crop up the price would have to be re-negotiated and no one ever likes to hear that in the middle of a project,so think long and hard about fixing up an old house because on so many occasions I have heard people say if we had knocked it down and started with a clean sheet we would have got exactly what we wanted and probably for the same or less money. I have noticed in Bulgaria that it is very hard to get a good floor layout from most of the village houses as sometimes you have to go outside to get to another floor and a lot of the time there is a lack of ceiling height.
I don't know where you are in Bulgaria but perhaps you would like to come along and view our new home in Rousse as we are having two open days on Nov 27th and 28th and all are welcome.You can view the pictures on our website in the gallery in finished projects and Baserbovo 2,Sorry about the free advertising but I hope I was of some help to you on the renovation theme. If you have any questions on any aspect of construction just ask.

Hi we have just renovated a property in south Bulgaria i project managed it and provided the design and specification of the important items to us, the property is 180sm, we had new roof structure installed and reclaimed tiles put on, outside stripped and re rendered and painted, wooden stairs inside, floors replaced that needed to be about 50% of the house, internal ceilings replaced, plastering as required on internal walls, new electrics, central heating (wood burner) installed, new plumbing, internal bathroom, spetic tank (euro spec) for toilet waste, soak away for sinks and kitchen, double glazing, and new doors outside, internal decorating ( we got them to paint it all white this way we can change to how we want but it also shows and bad areas and yes we have a few) all that is left for me to do is install a kitchen and internal doors as i want to change them lol and some pipe work to be boxed in, so all in all not bad the total renovation cost was 21,000 euro this is 227 leva psm.

If you want to know how i manage this PM me

Good job marlyn,nice to hear a good story for a change,you know as well as I do the amount of bad press builders get about shoddy jobs and over budget projects.
You have managed to get the job done to your satisfaction and at the right price.

I did the only thing well 2 things are they were 3months late lol they said 6 weeks to complete i gave them 10 weeks but it actually took them 16 weeks lol, and most of the finish was to lets say a standard below what i expected several jobs they did twice, but having lived in Turkey for many years the idea of it works so whats wrong with that is not strange to me, but the idea of things looking right as well as working was very strange to the builder. The project came in on Budget but very late, the next time i will be living on site and paying by the completed job and give them a proper program of works as leaving it up to the Master Builder (not what i called him a few times lol but sounded nearly the same) did not work very well.

Well I'll tell you one thing you seem to have got an honest man,It would not happen anywhere else where a job could run over that long and cost no more money,It tells me the builder had no idea what he was pricing in the first place and you were lucky he stayed around to finish,It reminds me of a friend of mine in the States who did renovations on high end properties and his client offered him a contract in his Summer home 250 miles away,My friend phoned me all excited and said his client offered him a million dollar contract, but he did not take in to consideration his costs beign away so far from home and also that the material costs on the coast were about 30% more so I warned him to be careful and he said it's a million bucks I know I can make it work, I said "
what happens if it cost's you 2 million"

Yes the first thing i think he was honest but the most important thing is we had a contract with scale of payments on works completed, so for him to do a runner before the end of the contract would have been stupid and cost him money, so maybe if under different situation he would have but its down to how you personally do the contract and payments.

marlyn wrote:

Yes the first thing i think he was honest but the most important thing is we had a contract with scale of payments on works completed, so for him to do a runner before the end of the contract would have been stupid and cost him money, so maybe if under different situation he would have but its down to how you personally do the contract and payments.

I agree very often no one looks at the small print and thats if they even bother to get anything in writing, and as we all know there are many who don't bother and rely on word of mouth and a shake of the hand and then when it all goes wrong they have nothing to stand by

I am just about to move into my renovated property which was about 100square meters give or take.
The only part of the 200 year old house that was left before they began to rebuild were the ground floor stone work and first floor oak frame, everything else was redone.

This price i've paid includes ground work i.e. cesspit, reedbed system, solar panels, 100 meter drive and hardcore as well as the general work, roof, electrics, water etc + all wooden windows and shutters, walnut flooring, oak kitchen. All done to an exceptional standard, which has involved being there every other day. I cut no corners, so the insultation is to british standard, walls and roof, the same with the plumbing and piping.

Costing = 800lev per square meter (a lot more than I thought, but a lot less than getting it wrong)

I'd be happy to supply anyone with the full spreadsheet costing that i've kept, i'm not sure how to post photos on this, but happy for people to join my facebook to see the photos if you pm me i'll send the spreadsheet.

Hi Seven

Whey you post or reply to this post - scroll down to the bottom of the page you will see the following * Options
* Upload attachment click on upload and insert your picture. Any problems give us a shout.
Or if you have the photos on photobucket we are happy for you to copy the link and put on here.

Oddy

Or there is a walk through here viewtopic.php?f=16&
t=2625 created the Admin its a real help if you don't know how to do it

Thats was easy.. thanks for that. Attached are some photos. If there are any specific areas anyone would like photos of just let me know, as I think I took photos of everything (including cess pit)... :-) Just incase, I'm not a builder this is my home and we started the renovations in April this year..