Main contractor’s preliminaries are the costs of items that cannot be allocated to a specific element, sub-element or component of the building, such as site management, set up and running costs. In an NRM 1 cost plan they form group element 9. Main contractor’s preliminaries exclude subcontractors’ preliminaries, which should be included in the unit rates applied to the building works.
Preliminaries include fixed costs, such as setting up and removing site accommodation, and time related costs, such as site staff, welfare, temporary services, hoarding, security, scaffolding and plant hire. At early stages they are usually estimated as a percentage of the building works, but later they should be built up in detail. For the QS:
- the split between fixed and time related preliminaries is central to valuing prolongation;
- check that preliminaries are not duplicated in subcontractors’ rates;
- NRM 2 sets out preliminaries in a standard format so that they can be priced and compared.
Related terms: Group Element, Time Related Costs, Prolongation, Overheads and Profit.
