Top 5 Challenges for Anyone Conducting Building Work
Having worked in the building industry for 15 years, we are very aware that any kind of building work can result in stresses and hurdles along the way. Focusing on the magical end result of a stunning new bathroom, kitchen, loft conversion or full property renovation can be compromised by a whole host of different issues that may appear out of the blue, many of which are way beyond your control.
At Refurb It All our number one priority is to provide our clients with the best service that we possibly can. We recently conducted some research to try to uncover the top 5 biggest stresses that home-owners face when doing any kind of building work. We have collated the responses and shared them below along with some of our suggestions on how hurdles like these could potentially be avoided. We hope this is useful to anyone who is thinking about starting a project in the future:
5. When important decisions are suddenly sprung on you that would be best to have more time to think about and discuss with others
We try to encourage our clients to think about all detailed aspects of their project at a very early stage. However even with the best planned projects, decisions can be required at short notice. This is not done to stress clients out but to ensure that their project remains on time and runs continuously without stops and starts waiting for decisions.
4. Not always knowing the right procedures and protocols and feeling like you are being ripped off
As a professional, quality construction and refurbishment company who have been in business for nearly 15 years, we have developed a specific way of tightly managing the process. We encourage our clients to have a schedule of works done by their architect or a quantity surveyor so all works are itemised and run under a contract. If things are done in this way everything is then itemised and allowed for and if anything crops up that was unforeseen there will be a procedure in place to deal with it.
3. Dealing with builders who fit your project in with other projects - often leading to delayed timings
At Refurb It All we allocate a team to each project who remain only on that project from start to finish. Specialist trades will be brought in during the project i.e. gas engineers and electricians but the main team and foreman will remain on the job throughout.
2. Excessive amounts of dust, mess and overall disruption
We always recommend clients not remaining in the property if it’s at all possible during the project as it’s better for them and us. However if it’s not possible we endeavour to be as tidy as we can and will often section off areas and try to contain the mess and disruption.
1. Escalating costs and unforeseen price changes
As already mentioned, having a proper contract and schedule of works in place should avoid this happening. However we're sure that most architects will agree it is always a good idea for clients to have a contingency amount in place to cover any unforeseen items that may come up during the works.
