Six trades,
one contract.
All of it done by our own people. The list stops where our competence does — if a job wants a specialist we will say so at the visit rather than find out slowly at your expense.
Kitchens
Taken back to brick and built up again, so the finish has something square to sit on.
Most of a kitchen is the part nobody sees. We take the room back, move the services to where the new layout wants them, level the floor and square the walls, and only then start hanging units. It is slower at the front and it is the reason the doors still line up two years later.
- Strip-out and disposal
- Moving water, waste, gas and power to the new layout
- Floor levelling, plastering and making good
- Units, worktops, splashbacks and appliance fitting
- Tiling, decorating and the second fix
Bathrooms
Waterproofed properly, tiled properly, and signed off before anything is boxed in.
A bathroom is the room most likely to come back to you, and almost always for something behind a tile. We tank wet areas before boarding, pressure-test the pipework before it disappears, and photograph the first fix so there is a record of what is where. The tiling is set out from the eye line, not from the corner.
- Full strip-out, including old tanking and screed
- First-fix plumbing, pressure-tested and photographed
- Tanking to wet areas before any board goes on
- Tiling set out from the eye line
- Sanitaryware, screens, extraction and second fix
Extensions & structural
Rear extensions, openings and the steel that makes them possible.
Taking a wall out is the part of a job with the least room for improvisation. We work to the engineer’s drawings, we do not start until the calculations and the building control notice are in, and we build the temporary support before anything comes down. Nothing about that is negotiable, and it is worth knowing which builders will tell you so.
- Foundations, brickwork and blockwork
- Structural openings, steels and padstones to the engineer’s design
- Temporary support before any load is taken out
- Roofing, glazing and making the envelope watertight
- Working to the building control inspection stages
Plumbing, heating & pipework
Re-pipes, boiler moves, radiators and the leak somebody else left behind.
A lot of this work arrives as a repair rather than a project — a pipe run that was never going to work, a boiler in the wrong place, a bathroom that has been dripping into a ceiling. We are happy to take it on its own rather than as part of something bigger, and to say plainly when a repair is the wrong answer.
- Re-piping and rerouting existing runs
- Boiler relocation and heating alterations
- Radiators, towel rails and underfloor heating
- Leak tracing and making good afterwards
- Pressure testing before anything is closed up
Strip-out & demolition
Soft strip, structural take-down, and a site left clean enough to work in.
Strip-out is where a job either starts well or starts badly. We isolate services before touching anything, protect what is staying, and sheet and clear as we go rather than at the end of the week. If we are doing the build too, the strip-out is planned around what comes next rather than around what is quickest to pull down.
- Isolating services before anything comes out
- Protection to floors, stairs and everything staying
- Soft strip and structural take-down
- Licensed waste removal, cleared as we go
- Daily clean-down of the working area
Cladding & external works
External finishes, and the detailing that decides whether they last.
Cladding fails at junctions — around openings, at the bottom edge, where two materials meet. Most of the work is in the detailing behind the boards: the cavity, the fixings, the way water is given somewhere to go. We would rather spend a day on a window reveal than come back to it in three winters.
- Battening, breather membrane and cavity detailing
- Board, render and composite systems
- Reveals, sills, drips and stop ends
- Fascias, soffits and rainwater goods
- Access and scaffold coordination
Five stages, and you know where you are in all of them.
Nothing here is unusual. It is written down because most builders do not write it down, and because the gap between two quotes is almost always a gap in what each of them includes.
- The visit
We come and look. It costs nothing and there is no obligation at the end of it. Bring whatever you have — a drawing, a Pinterest board, a rough idea of a budget — and we will tell you straight away whether it is realistic.
- The quote
A written, itemised price, so you can see what each part of the job costs and take something out if you need to. If there is something we cannot price properly yet, it is named as a provisional sum rather than buried.
- The programme
Before anything starts you get the order of works, who is on site when, and what we need from you and by when — usually the choices that hold everything else up, like tiles and worktops.
- The build
The same team, start to finish. You get photographs of the first fix before it disappears behind a board, and a straight answer when something on site turns out to be different from what was expected.
- The handover
We walk the job with you and write down anything you are not happy with, then finish that list before the final invoice rather than after it. The twelve months start the day you sign it off.
The quoteBetter to hear it before the quote lands.
None of this makes us easier to sell. All of it is cheaper to find out on a first visit than in month two.
We will tell you when we are the wrong firm
Some jobs want a specialist and some want a bigger contractor. If yours is one of them we would rather say so at the visit than take it on and learn it slowly at your expense.
We do not start structural work early
Nothing load-bearing comes out before the engineer’s calculations and the building control notice are in hand, and the temporary support goes in first. It occasionally costs a week and it has never once cost more than that.
A cheap price is usually a short scope
If our quote is higher than another, ask both of us what is in it. Most of the gap between two builders’ prices is not margin — it is the making good, the waste, and the days nobody wanted to put on paper.
Extras are agreed before they happen
Old buildings hide things and some of them cost money. When we find one you get a price for it before we do the work, not a line on the final invoice.
Tell us what
you want built.
A conversation costs nothing, the visit is free, and the quote is itemised. If it turns out we are not the right firm for the job, we will say so — that is a better outcome for both of us than finding out in month two.