We’ve been building and renovating beautiful homes in and around SW London since 2008.

HOW TO BUILD YOUR PROJECT

1. Plans drawn up by an architect or architectural designer. For most London houses wanting a standard extension and conversion, an architectural designer will often suffice as the planners are only concerned with the change in the property’s elevations. We can quote for a full set of plans to include existing and proposed floor plans, elevations, sections and roof plan, submission to planning with all supporting documentation and management of planning process.

2. Once you have plans, you’ll need to engage a structural engineer for calculations and drawings. Again, we can supply a quote for this if needed.

3. Send planning and structural drawings over to us; we tend to offer a ball park figure initially then, if it’s within budget, we visit site and prepare a fixed, line by line quote. We need the structural drawings to send to the steel fabricator to price up the supports for your conversion.

4. Party Wall Awards: You will need a Party Wall Surveyor to serve your neighbours a Party Wall Notice. They have two months to respond so this should be done as soon as practical. Your Party Wall Surveyor will need your planning and structural drawings to form the Award.

5. Building Control: Your work will need to be signed off by a Building Control Office to ensure it’s safe and conforms to standard. We tend to work with local authority BCOs, although happy to work with private companies, too.  We liaise with Building Control and book the appointments, and you pay their fee directly. This can either be done on a Plans basis (submit Building Regulations plans which will be an additional cost) or Notice which means the BCO will attend site more often. Although Notice basis is more expensive, it negates the need for Building Regulation plans.

6. We have around a four week lead time. If our quote’s accepted, we ask for a small holding deposit to secure your start date then prepare a Programme of Works, Payment Schedule and Contract.

7. Once we’re on site, you are allocated a project manager and dedicated foreman who will be on site full time for the duration of the project. We schedule in weekly meetings for a walk through to answer queries, make decisions etc.

8. Payment: these are staged into a deposit payment to secure your slot, a mobilisation payment due on our first day on site and interim payments. You retain 5% of the project total; 2.5% payable when we have completed and the remaining 2.5% payable when we return in six months to remedy any settlement cracks or snagging.