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skinny
Update on my positive experience of using these guys for some work on my tall town house house in Brixton - https://www.lcrenovation.co.uk/
The brief - replace a leaking skylight/velux; re-tile my porch; replace a toilet with a hairline crack to the bowl; replace some guttering and drainpipes.
The challenge - to do it quickly due to a nervous and very protective/territorial dog, who would need to be crated throughout.
It was smooth throughout. Submit query by email; response within 24 hours; appointment made a few days later; guy (who turns out to be the owner) turns up 5 minutes early and takes shoes off to come in the house; spends half-an-hour taking photos and measuring; quote arrives a week later - £4,440 with me buying the replacement toilet and velux.
Agree a September date, scaffolding up in 2 hours on the Thursday so he can go onto the roof to confirm the size of the velux, which I order along with the toilet on the Friday. Everything arrives by Tuesday and he has a guy on site on Wednesday to strip porch tiles. Then on Wednesday at 8 am, he arrives with eight men and they proceed to complete everything by 5.30, including hoovering, sweeping, removing all rubbish, etc. The boss comes back on Thursday morning just to add some lead flashing and then hose down everything and check I'm happy. Scaffolders back on Saturday and have everything removed in 45 minutes.
No "unexpected" extras - in fact he had to buy and pick up the right flashing for the velux, as I'd ordered the wrong one, but didn't charge me - "just one of those things". All his guys were friendly and polite - shoes off when coming in the house, asking if it was OK to use the toilet, asking if the dog was OK...
The reason for this lengthy post is that I've found it so difficult to find reliable builders. Three houses in my road had work done in the past 2-3 years and all of them went through that classic process of someone turning up for half a day and then waiting two days for someone else to come, so the job drags on. I'd been clear that I would rather have a couple of days of chaos and get the job done, than have it drag out. He took me at my word and did just that, but it was just one day.
I'm not sure how far he'll travel, but definitely worth considering if you're south.