What structural carpentry do you do in Guildford?
Across Guildford (GU1) it is mostly truss roofs and first fix on apartment blocks, timber frames on developer plots and cut roofs on period property. Guildford is a county town with two very different sorts of work in it: contractor scale apartment and commercial structures in and around the centre, and one-off period jobs on the hills and lanes surrounding it. Every job is priced off your architect and engineer drawings and a look at the site access, because a rate per square metre for structural work is a guess dressed up as a quote.
Do you charge extra to come out to Guildford?
No. Travel is in the price. Guildford is about 14 km from our Farnborough base, well inside the patch we cover as a matter of course, so you are paying for labour and materials rather than for the van. What does affect the price is access: whether a crane can get in and stand, and whether the deliveries can be taken on site or have to be double handled.
Do you cover Guildford regularly?
Yes. Guildford is half an hour east of us and mixes block-scale contractor work in the town with one-off period jobs on the hills around it. We are based in Farnborough and cover London, Berkshire, Surrey and Hampshire as standard, so Guildford is well inside our normal patch rather than a favour. Call and tell us where the site is, roughly what the structure is and when you need it, and you will get a straight answer on whether we can hit your dates.
Does the property in Guildford change how the job is done?
It varies more than most places, which is why we look at the drawings rather than the postcode. Guildford has town centre and commercial schemes wanting steel and frame packages, and one-off houses and extensions wanting a cut roof and a first fix package. The structure, the access and the crane requirement are completely different between the two, so the quote comes off your drawings and a look at the site, not off a rate per square metre.
How long would the structure take on a job in Guildford?
For a single house in Guildford, a timber frame is usually one to two weeks to wind-tight, a truss roof is a day or two once it is craned in, and an extension roof cut on site runs to two to four days. A steel goalpost and the timber framed off it is often the same visit. Larger schemes get a programme rather than a rule of thumb, worked out off the drawings before you commit to anything.
Can you look at drawings for a Guildford job before we commit?
That is the order we would rather do it in. Send the architect and engineer drawings over and we will come back with a broken-down price and, more usefully, with the questions. Details that are awkward or expensive to build are cheap to change on a drawing and expensive to change on site, so it is worth having that conversation before the kit or the trusses are ordered.
Do you work as a subcontractor for developers in Guildford?
Yes, and a good share of our work is exactly that. We are used to working to a main contractor programme, to site rules and method statements, and to being one of several trades on a live site. Insurance certificates and the usual subcontractor paperwork go over with the quote so nothing holds a start date up. We are equally happy dealing direct with a self-builder handling their own plot in Guildford.
