Steel and
padstones.
The beam scheme comes from the engineer, not the architect. Quotes priced off planning drawings alone routinely miss beams, padstones and the craneage or manual handling to get them in.
A real bill of quantities from a UK loft conversion, measured line by line from the drawings — 62 items totalling £70,317.93 excluding VAT, in Surrey. You get the working bill in Excel and the client-facing quote it produced.
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A main-roof loft conversion with dormer windows and rooflights plus a rear outrigger extension, priced to a fully-plastered finish with the engineer's beam scheme carried through. The bill carries the structural steel and beam scheme, the dormer and rooflight openings, the staircase, and the fire-protection and insulation build-ups that a loft has to satisfy for Building Control — the parts most commonly under-measured when a loft is priced by eye.
The beam scheme comes from the engineer, not the architect. Quotes priced off planning drawings alone routinely miss beams, padstones and the craneage or manual handling to get them in.
A habitable loft brings protected-route requirements — fire doors, ceiling upgrades, sometimes a full stair enclosure. It is a Building Control condition, not an optional extra, and it carries real cost.
Scaffold on a loft is priced by weeks, not by the erection. Underestimate the programme and the hire runs past the allowance — one of the most common overruns on a converted roof.
An itemised list of everything a job needs, grouped into sections, with a measured quantity, a unit and a rate against every line. It is what lets two builders price the same job on the same numbers, and what gives you a basis for valuing a variation when the scope moves.
Sixty-two measured lines totalling £70,317.93 excluding VAT for a main-roof loft conversion with a rear outrigger extension — the structural steel and beam scheme, the dormer and rooflight openings, the staircase, and the fire-protection and insulation build-ups Building Control requires.
Not for a straightforward domestic job. A chartered quantity surveyor is worth paying for when the bill carries contractual weight — commercial work, large refurbishments, or anything with serious money at risk in the detail. For a domestic extension or loft, the measurement itself is the work, and that can be done for a fraction of the fee.
The beam scheme, because it comes from the engineer rather than the architect; the fire-protection requirements a habitable loft brings; and scaffold duration, which is priced by the week and overruns when the programme slips. All three appear as measured lines in this bill.
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