Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants  - Intro

For some a trip to a builders merchants may be a daunting prospect. There are a few things to consider before you go as they are not like other shops.

If you have ever been in a builders merchants like Jewson, Travis Perkins or Buildbase, you will notice that the prices (if they are labelled at all) are normally high. Unless you are looking at a special offer price, then you are likley looking at the list price.

Quick Guide 

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants - Ring for a Price

Most products have a List Price. The list price is a made up price that a builders merchants will put on a product hoping that somebody will pay it. The price you "can" pay for the product is often a lot lower.

So the key is to ring up and ask for a "quote" (price) on what you want before you go to the actual "shop". When you have a price, try to negotiate a lower one.

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants - "Better Price Please"

Prices are not fixed, you can try and get a better price. Some staff will do this straight away because they are nice people, others are too lazy or do not care if you pay more.

The conversation might go like this:

You: "Hello could I have a price for 100 concrete blocks please"

Builders Merchant: "We can do those for 75 pence each"

You: "Is that your best price please?"

Builders Merchant "The best we can do is 69 pence a block"

You: "I will be getting some prices elsewhere so is this really your best price?"

Builders Merchants: "Yes" or "we could do them for 68 pence a block"

It is important to do this for everything you intend to buy. If you are building a wall for example, get prices for sand . . . cement. . . even a trowel and bucket before you go to the shop. EVEN get a price for a role of string. . . otherwise you might pay £6 for it.

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants - Get Price from Two Companies

Jewson (by example) might offer your concrete blocks (best price) for 68 pence each. If you then ring up Travis Perkins (by example) and say that Jewson will do them for 68 pence then they will either say:

1. "Thats a really good price we can't match that"
2. "We can do them for 65 pence"

You can even then go back to Jewson with the new lower price from Travis Perkins and see if they will beter it. In short it is very time consuming so it is best to email list to each Builders Merchants.

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants - Delivery

After you have your best price, ask for free delivery. This is an added bonus that is nearly always included for fairly large orders. 

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants - Get the Quote in Writing

It is very important that you get the price or quote in writing. If you just talk to somebody over the phone, then that is not good enough. You may not get that price when you pay! Which would be annoying.

Also if you have a credit account (see notes below) then you will not pay for maybe a month, by which point you will need you email to check the bill or invoice, against your quote. 

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants - Check Price

If you are paying cash or card on the day then then obviously check the price as you normally would. But if you pay by invoice then make sure when the invoice arrives (may be 2 weeks after receiving the goods) that you check the prices. They sometimes may have doubled! And you will be very glad you have your quote in writing (email). 

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants - Credit Accounts

Where things really fall apart is the accounting. You might think a credit account is a handy thing to have, but you will be harassed (record is 8 emails and 2 calls over 10 working day period) by their "partner" credit management companies, to pay the bills pretty much from the word go. Even for small bills under £100. . . 

Personally I try to make money by actually working and doing things, not skivvying around trying please somebody in a call centre. 

Jewson for example will not email invoices to you so you can check them easily, instead its masses of paper, or some inconvenient online portal where you can log on (yes another password to remember) to view them.

Getting the Best Price at a Builders Merchants - Conclusion

For large orders a builders merchants can save you a lot of money. However, these guys make buying something time consuming. This may be worth it for large order but for small bits and bobs, you may prefer to  go to B&Q or Homebase. 

Always look out for special offers in Homebase or B&Q, they are often cheaper than a Builders Merchants.

 Illustrator Devon 

Does Microsoft Office USe Multiple Cores?

Does Microsoft Office Use Multiple Cores?

Having recently upgraded from a 4 core to 8 core system, I am wondering how well access (by example) uses multiple cores.

So whilst transferring a 65,0000 entry access database to excel, I have observed the below CPU behaviour.

So besides showing I need more memory, the performance monitor shows that work load is spread over 4 cores, possibly 5.

Changing priority of the process does not change this spread. A lot of people say that you don't need more than 4 cores unless you are doing crazy rendering or editing. They are probably right!

Sunlight and Daylight Assessment 

Waste Recovery Plan

Aspects and Impacts Register

Environmental Consultants Bristol

Scythe SY1225SL12L 120mm Review

Scythe SY1225SL12L 120mm Review - Intro

Around 2 years ago I decided to make my PC quieter by using 2 Scythe SY1225SL12L 120mm Fans to replace the main chassi fan and also to replace 2 smaller CPU cooler fans.

Very Normal Looking

I run a HP XW8400 with two dual core processors, with thermal output of 60W a piece. This arrangement worked well for 2 years. I occasionally run CPU intensive models, the rest of the time its just multitasking and PDF making.

Scythe SY1225SL12L 120mm Review - Noise Levels

The fan is almost silent run at 12V this fan spins at 800 rpm. It is so quiet you have to listen hard even to hear it. It is quieter than the Arctic Cooling F12. But the air flow is lower. . . . regardless of specs, you do not feel much air going through case with these fans. After a switch back to Artic Cooling F12 there was a notable draft going through the case.

Cobwebs - The BAdge of Long Service

Scythe SY1225SL12L 120mm Review - Cooling

As mentioned above one of these Scythe SY1225SL12L will adequately cool 2 60W processors under light use. It will not cool 2 x 120W processors. I recently upgraded to 2 quad cores and even at idle the fan could not dissipate that much heat.

Scythe SY1225SL12L 120mm Review - Conclusion

The Scythe SY1225SL12L is a well made, excellent value fan, which is virtually silent. It is a great options for those wishing to build a nearly silent PC.

0.03A - Very Small Power Consumption

The fan is quite partly because of the design of the thing, but mostly because it spins a lot slower than most fans. As it spins slower it moves less air. If you are using over a 100W processor then chances are you will need more air flow, even when run on 12V.

Environmental Permit Applications  

Desktop Study

Reinforced Retaining Wall

Reinforced Retaining Wall - Intro 

This a a quick post to show some pictures of a reinforced retaining wall, along with a little non technical description, along the way.

A retaining wall is generally a wall you would build to avoid having a steep slope, or where you want to have a change in ground levels without a slope. Opting for a step instead. Retaining walls can be just a few feet high, or many meters.

Reinforced Retaining Wall - Basic Concept

If you were to stand a domino on its end, it could be easily pushed over. If however, you were to super glue the domino to a heavy table, it would a a lot harder to push over. Provided the glue were strong enough you would have to tip the table over to get the domino to topple.

In the same sense a concrete wall, can be easily pushed over by heavy soil pushing against it from one side, so we must attached the concrete wall to something heavy to stop it moving.

So we anchor the concrete block wall to a concrete slab. This is done by setting steel bars in the concrete footing, as shown above. The soil will try to push the wall, but with the weight of footing and the soil resting on top of the footing it will not move (providing the soil under the footing is not too squishy - a geotechnical investigation would determine this).

It is also important to let the ground water drain out from behind the wall. Gaps or pipes must be included to allow this.

Reinforced Retaining Wall - Case Study

In the below picture you can see the footing for the retaining wall has been cast, and the steel bars (rebar) are left poking up, ready for the wall to be attached to.

Next up the block wall is built up around the rebar. The block are hollow as they will be filled with concrete at a later date. Another option would be to build a wooden mould (shuttering) around the rebar and pour concrete in to the mould to make  wall.

As the wall is built horizontal bars are added, these are tied with thin wire to the vertical bars to keep them in place.

You can see here how the wall is built to one side of the footing. This helps keep the wall stable, as it will be loaded from (in this picture) the left hand side.

You can see more clearly here the thin wire sued to hold the bars in place prior to pouring the concrete.

On a very long wall such as this one you will need to have expansion gaps, these are breaks in the wall filled with squashy (compressible) material that allow the wall the  expand and shrink when it get hotter and colder.

Reinforced Retaining Wall - A Simple DIY Design

This retaining wall as pictured was likley designed by an engineer. And it is next to a railway so it is a very high quality, probably over specified retaining wall. 

For DIY purposes retaining walls can be built without reinforcement, from normal concrete blocks sometimes without any footings. But drainage is still very important. 

A method I have tried is a a thin strip footing topped with a concrete block wall. The blocks are laid on there side, and can be sloped gently back towards higher ground. If you do slope the wall back fill as you go. Gently pack the soil behind the wall. Every 4 or 5 block insert a length of 50mm drainage pipe between the blocks to allow of drainage. 

Environmental Consultants London