You already have drawings, whether from your own architect or from an earlier stage with us. General contracting is where we take those drawings and turn them into a building, carrying the trades, the programme and the site.
You sign one contract and deal with one person. Behind that, the coordination between the trades is our problem.
Managing trades directly is a real job, and it is usually underestimated by owners who try it. The mason finishes early and the steel has not arrived. The electrician turns up to chase walls the plasterer skimmed yesterday. The tiler cannot start because the waterproofing has not cured and nobody was tracking it. Every one of those is a day, and days are the expensive part.
Under a general contract that sequencing sits with us, along with the consequences of getting it wrong. If a trade is stood down because we called it in at the wrong time, that is ours to absorb.
Every project changes. The question is whether you find out what a change costs before or after it happens.
Variations are quoted with the underlying cost visible: what the material actually costs, what the labour actually costs, and what we add on top. You approve it in writing before anyone starts. Work that appears on an invoice without that approval is work you did not agree to, and we do not expect you to pay for it.
This cuts both ways, which is the part owners tend to like. When a change removes work, the credit comes back to you on the same basis rather than disappearing into the contract sum.
Plenty of owners have a designer they trust and want to keep. That works perfectly well. Your architect keeps design authority and answers your questions about intent, and we build to the drawings and answer for the site.
Where we push back is on buildability, and we would rather do it before we sign than discover it at the third floor. If a detail cannot be built as drawn, or can be built a better way for the same money, we raise it with your architect and let the two of you decide. We are not trying to redesign your house from the site.
Architectural and structural drawings, any specification or finish schedule you have, and access for a site visit. If the drawings are incomplete we will tell you exactly what is missing rather than pricing around the gap with an assumption.
Sometimes. We survey what is there and what it was built to before committing, because taking over another contractor's structure means taking on responsibility for it. If we cannot verify what is buried, we will say so.
Against agreed stages tied to completed work, set out in the contract before it is signed. Nothing is paid for in advance of being built.
Site cover and worker arrangements are set out in the contract documents so you can read exactly what is in place before you sign. Ask us for that detail at quotation stage.
Call the office between 8:00 AM and 7:00 PM, Monday to Saturday, or message the Facebook page any time. Send drawings or a rough scope and a written, itemised estimate comes back.
