Pre Construction

I love these posts I keep seeing "FREE NO OBLIGATION QUOTES". But yeah, it’s gonna cost £200,000. What am I getting for my £200,000? How do you know you’re not going get hit with extras half way through the job if you don’t know the full details and exactly what the contractor has priced for.

Grandfather rights is being phased out now and as of the 31st of December 2024, if a manager wants to renew their CSCS card after this date that they previously gathered under grandfather rights they now have to get the NVQ.

What is competency checking? If you carry out Competency checks, you are just making sure that the person working in your home is...

It's commendable that companies offer 5 and 10-year guarantees on products, but what are you truly receiving? READ THEM BEFORE YOU...

A site variation (or extra) refers to any addition to a job not included in the original agreement e.g. quote, specification. For...

🏗 Welcome to Transparency Construction – Building Done Right! Website blog categories 🏡 I'm thrilled to share my knowledge through this...

I have detailed our job pricing strategy on my About page. I feel it is a very clear pricing system. Materials - I will thoroughly...

How many builders begin work by demanding money upfront? For what reason? I've previously shared my story about giving our landscaper...

Hiring a Builder? Don’t Skip The Insurance Checks! 🏡⚠️ During my time on site, it was the surveyor’s duty to ensure our contractors had...

Get ready to dive into the exciting world of garden room design! In this post, I'm thrilled to share some of the key design stages that I...

🏡 What Type of Garden Room Should You Build? 🏗️✨ Thinking about adding a garden room, pub, office, granny pod or gym to your home? There are several build options, each with different costs, durability, and maintenance needs. Here’s a breakdown to help you decide

🚨 Exciting Project Alert! 🚨 We just completed our self built garden games room —the Fox Den Inn! 🦊🍻 A simple but thrilling build a DIY adventure. Despite a small height calculation mistake (oops! 😅), we adjusted on the fly and stuck to our submitted plans. ✅ Planning process? Surprisingly smooth! ✅ Lessons learned? Plenty! ✅ Next challenge? Tackling our home extension drawings without an architect! Follow along as I put my planning skills to the test. Will it work?

🏡 Building The Fox Den: What We Learned & What We’d Do Differently! 🏗️🍻 If everything had gone smoothly with our original contractor, The Fox Den Inn would have been completed much faster! But insufficient planning and research meant we had to redo certain build stages. For anyone planning a garden room, pub, or home office, here’s a quick step-by-step breakdown of how we built ours—and what we’d improve next time.

I’ve started crunching numbers, and while verbal quotes put my dream build at £150K-£200K, my own estimates tell a different story… Could a 3-story blockwork extension really be possible for £60K? 🤯

This story is pure embarrassment, but I wanted to share it because how this happened to someone as experienced as I am, well, I still don't really forgive myself. Dreams can quickly turn into nightmares if you're not careful.

Launching the Unfiltered female site manager blog. To help less experience people than myself understand building better.