Quote of €12K for walls/gates — any opinions?

G'day all,

I wonder if anyone here might be able to advise me on a quote I've had from a Spanish builder (no, I'm not joking!)

I (we) own a 1100m2 plot of rural land in the south of Spain which is already walled off on one side, and we want a local builder to wall off the other three sides — approx 30m + 30m + 35m — with an approx. 1m high row of standard breeze blocks supporting wooden poles and plastified mesh (think tennis court stuff), plus build in one pair of pillars with a 4m iron gate and another pair with a smaller pedestrian gate.

Now I know I'm not comparing like with like (Spanish vs. Irish costs, etc. — materials and labour are way cheaper over there), but I'm just wondering roughly what one would expect to pay for a fairly basic job like this. I'm only bothered about it because the same guy rough-quoted us €6,500 for the same job back in 2003, when we set out on the planning permission merry-go-round, and an increase of almost 100% in three years seems a little on the steep side...

I don’t particularly want to get into the extra time-wasting/hassle of looking for an alternative quote — and I don’t want to annoy/offend the local honcho, who we may want to do other jobs for us down the line — but I do feel the guy is 'extracting the urine' just a little bit. Has anyone had work like this done recently, in Ireland or elsewhere? Is €12,000 completely out of line for a job like this?

I have a number for an English bricklayer who is has done work for our family over there if you want to have a chat with him as it does seem a little pricey..

Thanks, gauloise, I've sent you a pm.

I think we might be getting the 'Paddy price', all right...

Hi DrM
Very hard to compare Irish building costs with Spanish costs, but I've tried to do a rough calc. based on your info as follows:

Say:

Conc. founds @ €20 per l/m (675x 300mm)
Blockwork & capping @ €26 per l/m (1.35m high, including rising walls)
Fencing (pvc coated chainlink) and rendering both sides of blockwork @ €40 per l/m.

Say a total cost of €90 per l/m, €90 x 95m= €8550 (ok, I haven't discounted openings in wall for gates)

Add €2500+ for gate piers and gates, total cost of €11050!

If only you could do the job here for that. That said without getting a competitive quote you cannot gauge whether this price is a fair and reasonable one or not, not without the services of a QS!

Cheers, Carpenter — maybe I'm not being taken for a complete ride, after all! I'm still waiting for his detailed breakdown, so I guess I'll reserve judgement until I see that.

However, I don't think he was planning to cap the walls or render the blockwork — at least, none of the surrounding sites have anything other than bare block walls, most of them pretty DIY-ish-looking — and they can't be built higher than 1m from the ground because of planning restrictions in the area. So his materials are probably going to cost a bit less than you've reckoned on above — especially since that particular part of Andalusía (Atlantic coast, Cádiz province) is renowned for being dirt cheap for blocks/tiling/plumbing supplies, etc. I think most of the big builders in Málaga do their shopping over 'our way'.

We'll be going over for a couple of weeks in July — maybe I should start improving my own DIY skills? (although bricklaying in 30/35° of heat is not the most tempting way I can think of to spend the hols...!)

Well you might find [broken link removed]useful then!

Bon courage!

Muchas gracias!