Building Work Aberdeen

The following postcodes: AB10, AB11, AB12, AB13, AB14, AB15, AB16, AB21, AB22, AB23, AB24, AB25, AB32, AB39, AB51.

We won’t be able to do an extension partially only. Let’s say you need someone to do the groundwork or roofing only, this is something we won’t be willing to do.

You’ll find plenty of people out there that are more than happy to take only a small part of the project, in fact this is how most tradespeople work out there. For large projects (and by large we mean commercial projects worth tens of millions), this division of labour makes wonders and lowers the total costs. For small projects (small houses or extensions) it’s very inefficient and increases the cost & duration of the work.

Yes, of course. Furthermore, we’ll work in such a way that the disruption for you is kept at a minimum.

This means that we won’t enter the current house until almost all the work is finished with the extension. This means that we’ll enter the house at a very late stage, probably 1-2 weeks before the project is completed.

We offer 3 years warranty on our work for most projects. This is more than enough to cover any possible snagging issues.

Bear in mind that we offer our warranty on all the work and materials, even if those cases where we used a subcontractor. Let’s say a gas engineer does some work, then that work will be covered by our warranty.

You’re spending most of your savings on this project or take a long term finance credit, so you can rest assured that everything is done properly.

A kit extension generally means that the walls/roof structure is manufactured off site. This has a series of advantages when you are building a house or a larger structure, but it’s very cumbersome for extensions and we don’t really see why you might consider it.

The reason for this is that an extension has to align with the flooring of the house and in most instances with the roof. In order to guarantee this, we would have to drill/open the walls/roof in some places so we can order the kit in such a way it aligns with your property. This creates discomfort inside the house and has to be done weeks before the project commences.

Building the structure on-site takes 1-2 days extra at most and you avoid all the troubles with ordering the right kit.

The structural engineer might prefer a kit, since this makes his work much easier, but it’s not the efficient way of doing things.

Yes, if you have a building warrant, then we can guarantee that our work will satisfy all the requirements of the council.

Usually we notify the council of our work at various stages and they sometimes come and inspect the work as well at these milestones. But there will definitely be a visit at the end of the project. No matter the report, we’ll be responsible to ensure that you get a completion certificate (at no extra cost, of course)

Be careful if you want to self manage your project. If you miss something (let’s say something essential like DPC/DPM), then it’s going to be very-very expensive to remedy the situation.

The council doesn’t have the resources to check every single detail of the extension. They will check the most important parts and also randomly check some other smaller details.

This is why it’s so important to have someone on site that knows and understands the building regulations. Not only this, the building regulations only go so far to instructions how to build well. We use NHBC and LABC guidelines on how to build, these guidelines far exceed the minimum required by the building regulations.

We try to be a one stop solution for your project. Since we have so much control over everything, this means that we can offer you an estimate before even applying for a building warrant. Moreover, we can deal with all the building warrant/planning application on behalf of you.

If you already have planning/building warrant, then we can offer you a price based on your drawings.

Most likely it’s going to be somewhere between 4 and 8 weeks, depending on the weather. This is possible with ruthless efficiency, a lot of automation/mechanisation is used to speed up the process.

Project management is also important. Although the project might start on a certain date, we start our homework 3-4 weeks ahead. We go over all the details in the plan, discuss some of them among us and see how we can organise ourselves in an efficient matter. This is also the time when we might contact your architect/structural engineer (in the case where we don’t offer architectural/structural engineering services in our quote) with any possible questions/clarifications.

A spreadsheet is then computed with all the materials requirements for your project and dates when these have to be ordered so that they are on site in a timely manner. This is typically accompanied by emails to some of our suppliers, so they can prepare the materials ready for delivery. The materials are large and heavy, so if they come too soon, we wouldn’t have where to store them on site, if they come too late, it would delay the project.

The total duration for our extensions is getting shorter with each project that we do, since we find new ways to innovate or use technology to improve efficiency. You might think that a traditional business like ours can’t really benefit from technology, but this is completely untrue.

No, for this sort of projects we won’t be able to discuss any price reductions. There’s a big shortage of builders out there and, even at good rates, you’ll struggle to get contractors for your project.

We consider our prices more than reasonable for the skills/experience that building work requires.

There are a series of variable that affect the rate per square meter, with the complexity of the project and site access being the main factors. Only after seeing a drawn plan and property we can offer you an accurate quote.

Yes, we’re a registered CIS contractor. This allow us to use certain contractors, for example gas safe registered engineers or NICEIC/Select registered electrical contractors.

It is a legal requirement for a contractor to be CIS registered, otherwise he won’t be able to use subcontractors legally.

Yes, we are VAT registered. The VAT threshold is £85 000 annually in turnover, meaning that it’s very easy to exceed the VAT threshold.

This is one of the main selling points for us, keeping our prices fixed. Extensions, due to their nature, almost always are prone to over complications. This is where most builders that ask lower prices do their profit, charge you a lot extra for these items.

We will always keep our prices fixed, unless you specifically ask for extra work to be done.

Yes, we are the main contractor and we can deal with all trades for your project. A multi trade project is what suits our team best.

Extensions, conversions and some work that falls under building warrant are the perfect example where you need a multiskilled team.

This depends on the project, of course. Any extension project will need a building warrant.

Inside work doesn’t usually need a building warrant unless in involves structural work.

We use a 50-70-90 rule in order to avoid overbooking, but still being booked enough. It’s like personal life, most likely you’ll know your plans for tomorrow or a week ahead, but the more time it passes, the less likely to know your plans.

We will book for a period of:
-4 to 5 months at 50% of our capacity. 4-5 months it’s a long time, but in any circumstance, we should be able to do half of our usual number of jobs.
-2 to 3 months at 70% of our capacity. 2-3 times it’s not so much in the future, so we can be surer than no unexpected staff holidays or delayed projects
-2 to 3 weeks at 90-95% of our capacity. 2-3 weeks are very manageable and we know quite well how many projects we can take

Based on this, you should expect larger projects to take more to book in our calendar, but we should fit small jobs on relatively short notice (by small we understand most projects under £10 000 total value)

Yes, we do all the project management. One team that deals with everything, from toilet hire and excavations to roofing and internal finishes.

No, we will take care of this for you. We’re registered waste carriers meaning that we can legally dispose the waste from your project.

We offer supply & fit quotes for our extensions. We can discuss if you want to supply some of the materials, but we would have to supply most of the materials ourselves in order to avoid delays with the proejct.

In most cases £0, but you’ll get regular invoices for the project.

Yes, they are completely free and you’re under no obligation to go ahead. But bear in mind that, since quotes are free, there might be a waiting time for these and in some cases we might have to postpone certain appointments.

We are usually getting paid by bank transfers. It’s a really easy payment method, you can either use online banking, either go to one of your bank’s branches with our invoice and pay it there.

This offers protection to both of us, there’s a clear money trace.

We can deal with all the process of getting an extension built, including applying for a building warrant/planning application. You’ll still deal with an architect at some point, but dealing with us means that we can offer you a fixed priced for the project even before applying for the project.

It’s also much easier for you, since all you need to do is to tell us what you need done and you get a price for this. If you’re happy, then we go trough all the process of applying/completing the building work.

There’s a calendar on our website where you can choose a free slot for a visit. It’s really the easiest way to book an appointment, since we can’t miss those as they go directly into our phone calendars. The second best option would be to send us an email detailing what you need done.

Get us round and you’ll be able to see how much the project would cost.

During a mild winter, yes. The bottleneck is usually the concrete/mortar. The rules for concrete pouring ask for 3 Celsius degrees and rising. In the UK, this is achievable during most during months.

Nevertheless, we usually try to avoid late November to mid February for outside work since the conditions are quite unfavourable then.

We will consider an old quote for as long as it is still profitable for us. But the more you wait until you give us a response, the more likely for us to say no.

An extension is by no means cheap, but its benefits far exceeds the costs. The main reason for these prices are the building standards and labour costs.

The first one, the building standards, have gradually increased in the past years. At the moment you’re getting more thermal and sound insulation than ever, energy efficient windows, smoke/heat/optical/CO2 alarms, much better structural specifications, better anti-damp measures and so on. Comparing a project of just 10 years ago to what is required now is a huge difference, not speaking of 20-30 years ago.
So you get a lot for your money and the council will make sure that these standards are adhered to. You might feel all these standards are too much, but it actually forces people to get quality construction work that will benefit them and future house owners.

The second important factor is the labour cost. Construction work can be really though at some times, with a lot of health & safety hazards and physical effort involved. Not speaking of the weather, working in bad weather is obviously not something uncommon in the UK.
Although builders generally have a bad reputation, building can be very technical and requires a large amount of knowledge if you want to be good in this field (including mathematics, IT and physics)