How much does it cost to build a house?
This is a rather broad question. It depends on the human labor cost, quality of the materials and the location /country/. Since we are located in Bulgaria /Europe/ we will review what the situation here is.
On the internet you can find some surprising numbers starting from the ridicules €200 per m2 to the scary €1000-€1500 per m2. Here these numbers are really far from the US market by the NAHB researches here.
To clear out the things we will try to review one average building without the interior. We will leave aside the option where you are calling all of your relatives to help you build your dream house and we will trust the professionals.
- Starting point.
Let’s start as a base for the formation of a price a regular two-story house with a maximum of 200m2. On the first floor, we will have a 100m2 – living room with a kitchen, entrance hall, hallway, toilet, and a stairway. On the second floor /100m2/ we will have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a special wardrobe place. For a roof, we will use a four-tile roof which is widely spread. Here we will not include any strange shapes but a simple quad.
There are two main types of price formation – rough construction and turnkey construction. In almost all cases the turnkey construction costs double.
- Documentation and taxes.
Before you start anything around the construction building you will need to pay different types of documentation and taxes which is going to be around €8 000. This includes – project documentation drawings /€22m2/, fire safety, Energy Efficiency Assessment Report, Park and Landscaping Report. We will need to cover the tax for building permits/around €1300. Аccession to the main electric panel / 15 kW/, water and sewerage.
- Site opening.
No matter where the project /house/ is going to be located you will always have expenses for the preparation of the worksite and the finish. The entry and the street always have to be kept clean, this is why you will need to have a non-transparent fence, temporary electricity and water, temporary toilet for the workers, security during the night and a few others. This is something obligatory for construction and it may cost around €1 500-€3 000 for the scale of this project.
- Rough construction / Act 14/
The main stage when you say rough construction is placing the construction of the building. At this stage, we do not include any electrical, water and plumbing installations. Here we are starting the prices from €38 000.
-Base. We will need to have a trench for the house. Depending on what type the garage is going to be /without one, underground garage, next to the house/ and the type of the ground the prices can start from €250 to €700 per truck.
We will need to have padded concrete with an average cost of €500 /labor included/.
For shuttering – around 3m2 for 1m2 built-up area with a price of €16m2.
Reinforcement – around 36m2 per 1m2 built-up area with a price of €0.9 per kg.
Laying of reinforced concrete – we will need around 0.5m3 for 1m2 built-up area with the labor is around €68m3.
Let’s not forget the isolation of the vertical walls at the base. We will take in mind that this house won’t have a garage and we will need to isolate 1 meter. We will need around 50m2 isolation which will cost approximately €1 300 / bitumen insulation, wall primer, drainage membrane/.
We will have to put also embankment which will consist of around 70m3 ground and 20m3 rocks under the first slab, which will cost around €800.
70m3 will need to be covered with masonry with a total cost of around €6 200.
–Roof. If we go here for a standard wooden roof we will have a total price of approximately €13 000. In this have included the wooden construction, black roofing felt paper, glass wool under the roof, eaves, gutters, and cladding. If you would like to have a concrete slab under the roof it will cost you an additional €4 000.
–Facade. After we have built our dream house we will need to put some windows, doors and fix the facade. All this with an approximate price of €16 000.
It really depends on what type of windows you are going to have, what will be the opening, etc. From our experience, we will take one average price of €5 500 for standard PVC windows. For this type of house, we are going to have around 40-50m2 with a price of €100-€160 per m2.
For this house, we will have a 240m2 facade to cover with facade plaster. Each m2 will cost around €30m2. In total €7 200.
In addition to this, we will have to form the wall plinth and the roof eaves. This will cost you €1 100 for 90cm of eaves /40m2 in total/ and 1-2 rolls of stone plaster for the plinth.
–Installations. One of the most essential parts to have a functional house is to have the plumbing and electrical installations.
Plumbing – are you going to be in the city or somewhere distant? If you want to be independent you will need €6 000 for probes and treatment plants. If you have access to the city water system and sewerage you will need a maximum of €3 200 to join it and install the tubing.
Electro installation – we will need an average of 1000 meters cabling, 2 electric panels /one per floor/, 200 combiner and junction boxes, 70-90 sockets, and switches. You will probably want 3-5 lamps for the outside of the house. In total this will cost you around €5 500.
Heating and air-conditioning – we could have 3 solutions for this. Air conditioners, heating installation with radiators running on pellets/gas/electricity or floor heating.
The cheapest solution is to have 5 air conditioners with an average total cost of €3 200.
The heating installation with radiators can cost you around €4 000 to €5 000 we will need also a chimney with a proximate price to be built of €1 000 and 2 air conditioners because you will need them, trust us! But you will need a place where to put the heating boiler… The total price here would be €7 000.
The expensive option is the floor heating where the cheapest option for this house is €10 000 /we have heard of this price, but just heard/ and the prices for something with good quality can go up to €20 000.
-Backyard. Let’s accept that we will have a normal backyard for this house of around 500m2 in total or 16,5X30m /we have included all of the space around the house as well/. We will need an average of €7 000 to make it look normal.
Fence – the most important thing to separate from the neighbors. We will need to have 60cm above the ground and another 60cm below the ground to put the foundations. Of course, we will need to have a metal door for us and the car /around €1 000/. All of this will cost us €4 000.
Flooring – in front of the house and partially at the back we will need some pavement. We will have around 100m2 of it. This will cost us €2 500 to be installed.
Can we do all this cheaper
It all depends on the location, what you previously you had on the land that you are building your house. If you will decrease the quality of the materials, but the price difference won’t be that much and the result is not going to like you after a few years. If you have relatives and friends or even you that would like to join the building process of your house, because you would like to make it with your own hands. The last option to decrease the price of the house is just to give up from some of the rooms or make the house on one floor.
What do we need to have in mind
There are always some unexpected costs that you need to have in mind. As mentioned before it all depends on the place that you have chosen to build your house – terrain, bad weather, additional details during the building process. This is why it is good to have around 10% of the price of the house aside.
Probably you are wondering how much would cost an interior? Next week we will review this, so don’t forget to follow us in the social network!