Look round a real build

1. The plot he walked away from

Three visits to the first plot, two questions nobody would answer, and one thing that did not match the listing. He did not buy it. That is the record earning its keep before a penny is spent.

2. The one he bought, and what it had to clear first

The plot he did buy took three visits, seven questions and four things that did not add up. All four were answered before the offer went in, and the answers are still there.

3. What it is going to cost

211 lines, grouped the way the work is actually bought rather than the way an accountant would group it. It is a budget filled in from real prices, not an estimate we invented.

4. When each bit happens

203 tasks, built from the answers to about a dozen questions about the house. Most self-builders have never seen one of these. It is the thing that tells you the roof cannot start until the scaffold is up, and what it costs you when the scaffold is late.

5. Asking five people the same question

Six enquiries went out on this build. Each one carries a written schedule of exactly what is being priced, so the prices that come back are about the same job.

This is the one thing on the page we do not hand over. The schedules are ours rather than this build’s, and they read the same whoever is using them, and they are most of what you are paying for.

6. What came back, side by side

Piling on this build: 35 priced lines, three contractors. The sheet reads their quotes and puts them in the same rows, so what one of them left out is a gap you can see instead of a surprise in month nine. There are six of these on the build and the biggest ran to 66 lines.

7. What was actually agreed

27 orders and 9 appointments, each one a document with a date on it. When somebody says that was never in my price, this is the piece of paper that answers.

8. What happened, day by day

41 days recorded: the weather, who was there, what was found. Photographs carry where they were taken, which is the detail that matters to whoever opens a wall in fifteen years.

9. Keeping people safe, and proving you did

Nine method statements read and checked, a construction phase plan, a waste plan, and the registers an inspector asks for. We do not write your method statements. We read the ones you are handed and tell you what is missing from them.

10. One file, at the end

Everything above, plus the certificates, the warranties, the drawings and the photographs, in one archive with a contents page somebody else can follow. You keep it whether you stay subscribed or not.