Whole-house renovation with one point of contact. Rewires, replumbs, new roofs, structural openings, kitchens, bathrooms and decoration, sequenced properly and run as one contract instead of a dozen separate arrangements you have to hold together yourself.
A renovation quote given without opening anything up is a guess. Floors lifted, a look in the roof, the consumer unit and the boiler checked, and the drains traced, before the numbers are put on paper. It is the cheapest hour of the whole job.
Steels, padstones, lintels and load paths designed by an engineer and installed with the temporary support done properly. Knocking two rooms together is straightforward when it is planned and expensive when it is improvised.
First fix planned around the finished layout rather than the old one, with sockets, lighting and heating designed for how the house will actually be used. Certificates issued and handed over rather than promised.
The outside gets closed in before money goes into finishes. A renovation that starts with the kitchen and ends with the roof is the wrong way round and it costs twice.
Joinery, tiling, decoration and the final fit taken through by the same trades used for years, so the standard of finish is known before they arrive rather than hoped for.
Renovations run differently depending on whether the house is occupied. Where you are staying put, the work gets phased into rooms and the services are kept on. Where the house is empty, it runs faster and costs less, and that is worth knowing when you plan.
Often yes, and plenty of people do. It changes how the job is planned: work moves room by room, water and heating are kept live wherever possible, and the dusty phases get compressed and warned about in advance. It does add time and cost compared with an empty house, so it is worth being honest with yourself about which matters more before the programme is set.
By opening things up before pricing them, and by pricing the whole scope rather than the visible half. Most renovation overruns come from three places: what is behind the plaster, drainage and services that were never as described, and decisions changed after the work started. The first two are dealt with by a proper survey. The third is dealt with by settling the specification before the trades arrive.
Structure, roof and weatherproofing first, then services, then plaster, then finishes. It sounds obvious and it is routinely got wrong, usually because the exciting parts are at the end and people want to start there. Sequencing it correctly is a large part of what a managed contract is actually buying you.
Yes. Building control applications, inspections and sign-off are managed as part of the job, and where planning permission is needed we will tell you at the first visit and work with an architect to get it. On a listed or period property the consent conversation starts before anything is designed in detail.
A three or four bedroom house getting a rewire, replumb, new roof covering, structural alterations, kitchen, bathrooms and decoration is typically five to nine months. Empty and unoccupied is at the shorter end. Living in it, or a period property where the fabric needs care, is at the longer end.
We would rather take the whole thing, because the value is in the sequencing and that disappears when the job is split. Where you only want one element managed, say the structural work or the roof, say so and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth engaging us for it or whether you would be better going direct.
Somerset, Devon, Wiltshire and Dorset, with the towns and villages in between covered as a matter of course. Work further afield in the South West is taken on where the project suits us and we can give it the attention it needs.
Every project starts with a conversation, long before it starts on site.