Morning,

Just bought a wreck of a house that I will be rebuilding. Gut job, walls down, new electrics, central heating, kitchen, bathroom plumbing etc.

I will obviously get in qualified trades in where needed but everything else I will be doing.

I would normally use screwfix/toolstation for all bits and bobs. I am a little touch with the best and cheapest place for stuff and wondered if anyone could point me in the right direction.

Thanks for any help or advice.

Go haggle at your local builders merchants.. Or speak to your tradesmen and ask where they get the cheapest materials and ask them to order if they have a good relationship with their LBM

Hard to beat screwfix and toolstation for plumbing and electrical. Might get a slightly better price at a wholesalers/merchants but their pricing is so untransparent you could easily end up paying more. Getting a trade account at b&q is good for bigger materials, can be tricky to convince them you are trade, depends who you speak to. TLC are good for electrical. Ebay is great. Loads of stuff goes dirt cheap if you can collect. Had loads of blocks, lintels, even a fireplace for 99p.

get an account and a good LBM.

I have three LBMs around me. One never manages to charge the same rate for the same item from one week to the next, the other had a stupid ordering/docket/account process that made ordering stuff a pain, and the one I went with has been brilliant, and I still have my account there despite only spending <£500 a year on bits and pieces now.

I used to get substantial discounts on shopfloor prices, anywhere between 20% and 80% (rainwater goods), I could pick delivery slots on the lorry for convenience, and the account managers knew their onions about various kooky construction systems as and when I wanted to do something different. Their advice was brilliant. Over the entire construction period, I probably saved over £30k, maybe as much as £50k.

For plumbing and electrical materials though, for the most part I got those at local specialists as stock was better. And the sheer amount of door hardware I needed (handles, locks, hinges, window latches etc) meant it was worth a special trip to Birmingham to a specialist to buy the whole lot in one go.

Like an LBS, and LBM is worth their weight in gold.

Mrcentralheating for plumbing everything else haggle with local merchants or I’ve even had success with wickes when buying in bulk

That’s great thanks guys

There are a few online BMs who are very competitive price wise, I bought 68 sheets of Celetex from these guys (each was cheaper for one type):

http://www.building-supplies-online.co.uk/
http://www.insulationexpress.co.uk/

Both were much cheaper than the local builders merchants (even with a trade account). Delivery was free.

One of the problems with haggling with your local trade counter is most trade outlets don’t list their prices so unless you buy a lot of stuff you don’t know whether the price you’re being offered or trying to haggle on is good or not. If you’ve a bigger B&Q near you look for their ‘Tradepoint’ counter and pick up the catalogue. Its not the best prices you can get but its at least a benchmark to compare quotes against.

One never manages to charge the same rate for the same item from one week to the next,

I have a history of taking out trade accounts with timber yards then within a few weeks that yard and my account being taken over by Jewsons (almost immediately in one case – my account no was 00000001). They’re a bunch of shysters. I priced an order of timber with them and collected, then later the same day had to order and collect exactly the same amount of the same wood. When the invoice came in the second order was more than 3 times the price of the first.

One thing worth considering with a job like the OP’s is if you have an account with (or even are a known face at) a merchants then there are prices/rates for materials that become ‘your’ price, and ‘your’ price will be dictated by the size of orders you make. If theres a material you’ll expect to use a lot of try and make your first order a big one, that’ll make your unit price for that item quite low even if future orders are smaller. Make a small first order and the unit price will be higher and that can mean future larger orders will be correspondingly high as well.

Where are you based?

I’m down in Brighton.

Will probably look to use Stamco for general building supplies and screwfix/tool station for the remainder.