Just moved to london - house needs a refurb where do i find my builder ?

[marylondon1]

Hello I recently have moved from the countryside to london with my 2 kids having just bought a house. However it needs a complete refurb and i dont know where to find any decent tradesman - google reviews slightly scare me ..

Try checkatrade.com and choose one that has lots of reviews

I have used rated people.com and found great trades men on there. Again you can read reviews etc to get an idea of their previous work.

I've used mybuilder.com to find an electrician and a plumber. There's reviews on there and you can post details o your job and get quotes.

Go and introduce yourself to a few of your new neighbours and ask if they have had any building work done, and if so, would they recommend their builders?

The ones I am using for lots of stuff this year have been working off and on for my opposite neighbours for years. They don't really have an internet presence and don't need to advertise, they get all their work through personal recommendation.

Depending on how much work you have to be done, and where in London you are, I can thoroughly recommend my friend.

He lives in Belfast but has moved to London nearly every summer to work because he is such a catch.

yes I have read about rated people I stumbled across www.1roof.org has anyone used to any success?

I would go via word of mouth. My dp is a builder and he gets pretty much all his jobs that way.

Ditto pass nearly my whole family are builders and there is no better way to hire a builder than personal recommendation.

On a side note - many of my family prefer taking work from people they have heard that, through friends, are also reasonable, so if you have friends who have had good work done that they are happy with, then that's the way to go.

I agree word of mouth is how i have always used builders ! just dont know many people in London !

What area of London are you in?

east london , hackney

Combo of mybuilder.com and word of mouth. I got one brilliant builder off mybuilder.com even though he didn't have many reviews (but the reviews were extremely glowing, which normally scare me). I guess he got by word of mouth as he's been working for the same people over the years. Word of mouth was not that straightforward as I was totally new to the area and didn't have that many home-owning friends, people had more bad builder stories to tell.

Look up and down your street- there are bound to be builders in- either ask directly or take down the number and call.

Well I can recommend a couple in that area but would depend on the work you need doing and whether you need specialists. List the work you want done, look around your neighbours - look on the two websites and compare and ask and talk, most good builders get word of mouth work but you must be clear on what you want! and make sure you communicate that to the builders.

I agree with exexpat - ask your neighbours. Take a wander round the local area and see if there are any building works going on, if so you could knock or pop a note through the door to ask them if they would recommend and if so please text/email you.

Ask on MN local or other local internet forum.

I used the federation of master builders website as a starting point

www.fmb.org.uk

I have approached some builder to quote using 1roof was the only one i could find that gave me recommendations in my area. I will let you know how i get on - Thanks people