Here are a series of frequently asked questions in regards to building projects. These sort of projects are very complex in their nature, so we’re more than happy to come to discuss any other questions you might have.
The following postcodes: AB10, AB11, AB12, AB13, AB14, AB15, AB16, AB21, AB22, AB23, AB24, AB25, AB32, AB39, AB41, AB51.
Yes, we’re a registered CIS contractor.
Yes, we are VAT registered. In the UK, all sole traders or companies that have a turnover larger than £85 000, have to register for VAT. If a business is under this threshold, they have either just started either they have a really poor performance.
Theoretically a VAT price means that there’s an extra 20% on labour that goes to the tax authorities. But it’s usually not as straightforward as this, we are generally so efficient that even non-VAT businesses struggle to compete with us.
Yes, as long as you don’t make alterations after the building warrant is approved. We give you a final quote based on the approved building warrant.
Of course, you do these sort of projects a few times in life only. It makes sense to keep looking for the right balance between aspect, quality and affordability. It generally creates issues with the planning/building warrant if you change your mind after the plans are approved, but before this it should be relatively easy to change your mind.
These sort of projects are by no means cheap. It’s not like you’re going to the supermarket and buy a more expensive product without thinking too much. While we try to make them as affordable as possible, we are always open to making changes so the project is compatible with your bank account and preferences.
If you read the pages in this website, you’ll see that we focus a lot on the value for money. We fully understand that some of you don’t really care about how much you spend, but we do (on a business level and personal level).
This is why we try to respect how hard you saved for those money, we know it’s hard to save enough for a home improvement after so many bills. This means that we’ll try to make sure you get the most of your purchase with us.
Ideas are usually enough. If you use an architect that we recommend, then we can give you a price even before the project starts.
There’s no point to apply for a £100 000 extension building warrant if you only afford £25 000. The vice versa is true, you might afford much more than you think.
There are so many projects out there that haven’t gone ahead in the past years. The main reason for this is that customers go to architects and ask for a variety of things. After many months of planning and approvals, they’re shocked when they get contractors and get prices in. Some of them apply for a different building warrant/planning just so they can afford the project.
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, this is one of our main selling points. One team that deals with everything, from toilet hire and excavations to roofing and internal finishes.
It’s a lot of skilled work and we can do it well at a good price. There are many other teams out there that can do a good job as well, but by no means are they affordable.
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 have so many projects that it actually made sense to invest in a specialist tipper van that we use mainly for disposing waste. This cuts in half the costs with disposing waste for us compare to the standard skip that most tradesmen use.
Also, this means that we can dispose the waste much faster than with a skip (skips usually stay in your driveway for one week). Generally the first or second day all the waste is removed from your property.
It really depends on what sort of building work you’re interested in, but in many cases we can’t wait until you get all the materials on site (especially in the case of extensions and conversion)
For small jobs we can consider projects on a labour only basis.
In most cases £0. We don’t take deposits, but we might split the project in multiple invoices if the project is very expensive. As a rule of thumb, projects up to £5000-£6000 are small projects and you’ll receive a single invoice at the end of the job.
Yes, they are completely free and you’re under no obligation to go ahead. No hard feelings here, we want the market to be as efficient as possible.
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.
We can put you in touch with an architect, but we won’t be able to do this for you. The best way in this case is to choose someone that we recommend, since we can offer a price for the work even before submitting a building warrant.
Alternatively, if you prefers a fancy design, try to find an architect with a similar project in his portfolio. This would allow you to easily get a building warrant, since the architect will mostly copy paste the old project specifications.
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.
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.
We appreciate that you want to help us with reviews, but these don’t usually help us that much. We work locally and our bread and butter are the recommendations by word of mouth.
It would help us much more if you’d send us a short email with honest feedback. We try to be as good as possible, but sometimes we need to be pointed in the right direction.
If you want to leave a negative review, then you can find a variety of online sources to do this. But contact us first, we know that we can’t satisfy everyone 100%, but we can try to improve your experience.
