We Swapped a £2,500 Quote for a DIY Garden Steps Build — Here's What It Actually Cost

Last summer we got a quote to replace our garden steps — swapping rotten old wood for sandstone tile. £2,532 inc. VAT and it felt like a fair price for fair work. Then we saw a neighbour's post about a fence uplift and flower bed they'd done themselves for £400, instead of the £2,000 they'd been quoted. That got us thinking again: yes, you save on cost, but how much does it actually cost you in your own time?

We had some annual leave to use up. So we decided to find out properly — no professional experience, just us figuring it out as we went, sharing it honestly as it happened. Costs, time, mistakes, whether DIY actually stacks up against paying someone who knows what they're doing.

Here's how it went.

Day One: Plans Humbled

Numbers first. We were quoted £2,532 for the job. Materials cost around £816, leaving £1,716 against 5 days of labour if it went to plan — roughly £343 saved a day for one person working alone, before tools, wear on kit, or any issues.

We hit an issue on day one.

Today was supposed to be the easy part: get the old rotten wooden steps out, clear the way for the new ones. Good progress early on, then three of the wooden beams — held with hinge plating — wouldn't shift. Best part of 3 hours spent on those alone.

We got there in the end and made it to the tip, but it ate into the timeline. Breaking down the wood and clearing the excess soil and rubble really needed a second pair of hands — not for strength, just to keep things moving while one person carries on with the next section. The wood still wasn't broken down by the end of the day.

So the 5-day estimate already needed a rethink.

Day 2: Behind Schedule, and the Dog's Not Helping

Was hoping for a step a day. Realistically we were at about 75% done with the first step. Turns out estimating your own pace is its own skill.

A few things caught us out. We hadn't accounted for the cavity behind the steps. We also didn't want to sit the tiles flush against the existing foundations, which meant we needed engineering bricks to support the tile — an unplanned materials run for MOT Type 1 and bricks. More time lost.

Then there's the dog. Walking her is non-negotiable, and she'd taken a particular interest in the site — chasing a ball straight through freshly placed bricks more than once. Not something you'd ever price into a job, but very much part of doing it yourself.

The mortar was proving fiddly too — getting the moisture content right, especially with spill-over round the edges, took more trial and error than expected.

Days 3 and 4: One Step Down, a Lesson in Split Focus

Good progress — first step 90% complete, the second 50% and a clear plan for finishing the rest. Worth flagging: this was really two half-days rather than one full one, as life got in the way.

No further materials needed for the steps themselves, though we hit a snag on the tile cutting — couldn't find the right blade for the job, so that's another tool to buy before carrying on.

One shortcut worth mentioning: rather than mixing a fresh batch of mortar every time we needed to hold the engineering bricks in place, we started using concrete as the adhesive instead. Rightly or wrongly, it saved a fair bit of time.

Schedule-wise, we'd originally planned to have 3 steps built by now. We were easily 2 days behind. It re-emphasised how much a dedicated pair of hands — focused solely on the job — gets done in a fraction of the time compared to someone like us, pulled in multiple directions.

Days 5 and 6: Finding a Rhythm, and a Change of Plan

A definite turning point. Bricklaying got noticeably quicker — we started spotting a pattern: three bricks lay easily off one batch of mortar, but the fourth gets trickier as it starts to dry out. Overspill was down significantly too, which meant a lot less time clearing up afterwards. Small wins, but they add up.

About halfway through, the kids got properly involved — on spirit-level duty, letting us know when the bubble was centred. One even got their footprint in the drying concrete. So did the cat, somehow, despite not being invited onto the job.

The bigger update: we realised we weren't going to get four steps out of this after all — three it was.

Because we weren't precious about the original plan, we got a bit inventive with the layout rather than treating it as a problem. It does create a minor trip hazard at the top that'll need sorting before we're done, but nothing that can't be solved.

There was an upside too. Not building that fourth step saved at least 22 engineering bricks, at roughly £1 each and 20 Tudor bricks at roughly £1.30 each. We planned to return those and put the money towards a grinder, needed to start cutting the remaining tiles to size — so the saving covered a cost we hadn't budgeted for, rather than just sitting as spend avoided.

Steps Done!

Not award-winning, but with zero experience, we're pleased. The ramp to the pathway isn't ideal, but it's functional — a fix for another day if it ever becomes a real problem.

Grinding the tiles worked, though there's room to improve. We nearly cut a rectangle for one final piece but held off — good call, as another cut tile split clean in two under the mallet shortly after.

Why we did this

The old wooden steps had rotted to the point of collapsing under weight, including the kids'. No budget for a contractor at the time, but we had annual leave to use.

The Time v Material Cost

Materials and tools, including returns: roughly £400. Against our benchmark quote, that's a saving of £416 inc. VAT — around 50% on materials alone, without actively trying to cut costs. Bought from Selco and Wickes. 16% of the overall cost.

Planned for 5 working days, took 6, spanning 9 days overall. Annual leave covered the time — but if we'd had to buy that leave at the average UK day rate of £150, the real cost of our 6 days would have been around £900.

Total own labour + materials: roughly £1,300.

What this means.

Since we finished, we got a chance to run the numbers properly and ask the question everyone doing a job like this should ask: at what point does your own time make DIY the wrong call?

Materials are a separate question — sourcing them yourself is scoping work, not labour, and that saving (£416, roughly 16% of the quote) is available to any homeowner whether they DIY the build or hire someone to do it. So the real comparison is about the 6 days of labour, not the whole job.

Strip the material saving out of the quote and you're comparing:

• Contractor labour cost: £2,532 − £416 = £2,116

• DIY cost: £400 (materials, paid either way) + (your day rate × 6 days)

  
  

Set those equal and solve for the day rate, and the breakeven lands at £286 a day — which works out to a salary of roughly £71,500 a year, using the same day-rate-to-salary conversion (250 working days) as our £150/day figure above.

In other words: if you earn less than about £71,500 a year, 6 days of your own labour is worth less than what you'd pay a contractor for it — DIY is the financially rational call. Above that, your time is worth more than the saving, and you'd have been better off paying the quote and spending those days elsewhere

. Here's the bit that surprised us. £71,500 sits close to the top 10% income threshold for UK taxpayers (HMRC, 2023/24 data: top 10% starts at £67,400). That puts the breakeven at roughly the 91st percentile.

So, purely on the maths: for the vast majority of homeowners, doing a job like this yourself is the financially sound decision — provided you have the skillset to actually do it. That's a real caveat, not a throwaway one. Our breakeven assumes DIY output roughly on par with a tradesperson's, and it took us 6 days of trial, error, a dog with excellent aim, and a fair few unplanned trips to Selco to get there.

The maths works if you can genuinely deliver the job. It doesn't account for redoing it, or for the risk of getting it wrong on something structural.

And the materials saving stands regardless of which way you go. Whether you swing the tools yourself or bring in a contractor, sourcing your own materials properly — rather than accepting whatever's folded into a quote — is worth roughly 16% on its own. That's the part of this we built Bid4MyJob to solve.