PAIDiPaidThis.com
Home / Trade costs / Free guides

FREE GUIDES

Free home improvement cost guides

Free, plain-English guides to what UK building and home works really cost, each built on real prices people posted, not cost-guide estimates.

Extensions & conversions

What drives the cost of a garage conversion

A garage conversion is one of the cheaper ways to add a proper room, but the final bill swings a lot depending on what the space needs first.

Median £10,000 across 7 real prices

Heating & electrical

What drives the cost of a new consumer unit

Swapping a fuse board sounds like a quick job, and sometimes it is, but the price can climb once an electrician sees what is behind the cover.

Median £573 across 4 real prices

Exterior & structural

How to pay less for new garden fencing

New fencing can be surprisingly pricey once you add up posts, panels and labour, but there are sensible ways to trim the bill without ending up with something that leans over in the first winter.

Median £1,750 across 4 real prices

Exterior & structural

What affects the cost of garden fencing

Two fencing quotes for what looks like the same garden can be miles apart, and the reason is usually in the detail.

Median £1,750 across 4 real prices

Kitchens & bathrooms

How to get honest quotes for a new bathroom

A new bathroom pulls together plumbing, tiling, electrics and fitting, so quotes can vary wildly depending on what each fitter has assumed.

Median £11,500 across 11 real prices

Money-saving

How to read a builder's quote and spot the padding

Reading a builder's quote properly means checking three things: what is actually included, which figures are only estimates rather than fixed prices, and where vague wording lets extra cost creep in later.

Median £87,500 across 6 real prices

Money-saving

Boiler quote too high? The national-firm markup trick

A boiler quote often looks too high because it is coming from a large national installer whose price includes call centre costs, sales commission and a franchise fee on top of the boiler and labour, not because the job itself costs more than a local firm would charge.

Median £2,500 across 7 real prices

Comparisons

New boiler vs heat pump: the real installed cost

Comparing a new boiler against a heat pump on cost means looking past the sticker price of the unit and weighing the installed price after any grant, plus what each one actually costs to run.

Median £7,500 across 8 real prices

Real bills

What people really paid for a new kitchen

The real cost of a new kitchen is best judged from what homeowners have actually reported paying, not from a showroom estimate or a generic cost guide, because the figures below come from real submissions rather than averages pulled from a supplier's price list.

Median £10,000 across 11 real prices