The cheapest quote is usually the least complete one
Residential and commercial contracting quoted line by line, with the exclusions listed on the first page rather than discovered as variations.
Twenty-four years in one city
Four kinds of work
We do not take on anything we cannot supervise from this office, which rules out work outside the district.
Residential
New builds and whole-house work, from a bare plot to handover. The commonest job and the one where the exclusions list matters most — earthwork, boundary walls and making-good are the three most frequently left out of a competing quote.
Commercial fit-out
Offices, showrooms and clinics, usually against a deadline that is real. We will tell you at quotation which parts of your programme are not achievable rather than agreeing to it and slipping.
Structural repair
Cracking, settlement and water ingress. This work starts with an investigation and a report — sometimes concluding that the problem is cosmetic and does not need us, which happens perhaps one time in six.
Project management only
For clients who already have trades they trust. We run the programme, the inspections and the payments without doing the building, charged as a percentage that is stated rather than buried in a rate.
Exclusions in the same type size as the price
Almost every dispute on a building site is about something that was never in the quote. A contractor who leaves out the earthwork, the scaffolding or the making-good after the electrician wins the tender and recovers the difference as variations, and the client discovers this in month four when stopping is no longer an option. Our quotes list what is excluded on the first page, and any variation is priced and signed before the work is done rather than added to a final bill.
How a job runs
Five stages. You can stop after the first two having spent very little.
Site visit
An hour on the plot or in the building. Free, and it ends with an honest view of whether the budget you have in mind is realistic — which about a third of the time it is not, and hearing that now is cheaper than hearing it in month three.
Quotation
Line by line against the drawings, with the exclusions on page one. Charged at cost for anything requiring a structural engineer, and refunded against the contract if you proceed.
Programme
A dated programme with the inspection points marked, agreed before anybody starts. Where your own supplier or architect sits on the critical path we say so here rather than blaming them later.
Build
A written report every Friday — what was done, what was found, what changed and what it costs. Sent whether or not anything interesting happened, because the weeks with nothing in them are the ones that build trust.
Handover and defects
A joint snagging walk, then twelve months of defects liability with a named person to call. Retention is released against the snagging list rather than against a date.
Completed work
Six of the last thirty. All within an hour of the office.
From clients
They were eleven per cent dearer than the next quote and sat with us for an hour showing what the other one had left out. It came to more than eleven per cent. The final bill was within four per cent of the contract.
They told us at quotation that our opening date was not achievable and proposed one three weeks later. We opened on their date. Every contractor before this one agreed to our date and then missed it.
After the investigation they told us the cracking was cosmetic and did not need the work we had budgeted for. They charged for the report and nothing else.
Request a quote
If another contractor has already quoted, bring that document. We will read it with you and point out what is missing from theirs and from ours — that conversation is free and it is the most useful hour in the process.
The office
On Udhna Magdalla Road, open Monday to Saturday. Drawings can be dropped at reception.