Thirty years of construction, from site engineer to construction director.
The book and the tools are John Friel’s. He started as a site engineer in 1989 and has spent every year since on construction projects, in the end running them. Everything here comes out of that.
How it went
From 1989, site engineer
Straight from school into the family construction firm, setting out other people’s work on site while taking the qualifications part time.
1995, Australia
Site engineer on civils work out of Sydney, including three city-centre stations upgraded for the 2000 Olympics, and cadastral survey tours in the outback lasting weeks at a time.
1996 to 2010, running the builds
Back at Friel Construction and Friel Homes, up to construction director: tendering and delivering housing and highway schemes, including new roads for major housebuilders on contracts up to £20m.
2011 onwards, planning
Programmes for other people’s projects — highways, rail, a hospital, thirty wind turbine sites, and a £60m residential scheme in London — for Skanska, Aggregate Industries and others.
2015 to 2021, construction director in London
A 178-home scheme, a 60-unit mixed scheme in north London, and a Post Office converted into 25 flats. Construction lead and planner first, then construction director from January 2019. The firm went from £1m of turnover to £16m over those years.
Now
Independent planning consultancy from France, writing tender and pre-construction programmes for contractors across the UK and Europe.
Both sides of the table
He has also been the client, and the builder.
Alongside the day job he has run his own projects for years: barn conversions, detached houses, apartments taken back to bare walls. One of the barns is fifteenth century and Grade II* listed, underpinned and restored from the ground up, which is the second-highest listing there is and means every decision on it had to be agreed with somebody before it could be made.
Several spec developments with business partners in the UK on top of that, and a run of renovations in Chamonix built for other people.
Most self-build advice comes from somebody who has been through it once, and most professional construction knowledge never gets written down for the person paying for it. This is written from both sides: thirty years of it with other people’s money and deadlines, and a long run of it where the money and the decisions were his own.
That is what the book is. Not a diary of one build, but the order the decisions actually come in, what each one costs if you make it late, and the paperwork that turns out to matter two years afterwards.
Why there are tools as well as a book
Programmes, budgets, enquiries and safety paperwork are what a construction company does every day and a self-builder does once. On a real project there is a team producing them. On yours there is you.