Can u recommend a builder near SE10 Greenwich?

[Hong888]

Our offer on a victorian house has been accepted and now planning to build a rear and side extension at the ground floor.

After reading all these advice to stay away from website i.e. mybuilder, I am going back to traditional word of mouth recommendation. If you have come across / used / know any competent builder/company around this area, please pm / let me know.

Cheers
Hong

We are currently using Dulwich lofts, not far and they do all sorts of building renovations. Went for them because if quality of neighbours loft. Neighbours are using them for their kitchen extension too.

Thanks. They suggest 30k-60k for a side extension on their website. I am a structural engineer myself and I think this figure seems a bit much, or is that the going rate in SE nowadays?

That's quite reasonable, unless you want a cowboy job

What's wrong with mybuilder website, please?

Clue me in !

I read poor feedback on mumsnet and moneysavingexpert about mybuilder

In summary, the tradesmen ain't been vetted by the website. The fee system (paid by tradesmen) is badly structured so decent builders left it bec its waste of time and money. Builder's feedback can easily be manipulated with fake leads provided by friends.

For most of the kitchen extensions round here you are talking £50-70k. I wouldn't be surprised if that figure is a bit out of date. Either that or it's a bargain. I'm guessing it would be cheaper out of the SE, but as a friend of mine commented the other day, there are SO many people having loft conversions/extensions that there is an incredible amount of work around, and so good builders can almost pick and choose. They weren't the most expensive quote we had for our loft, but they weren't the cheapest.

I should say that that does include new kitchen/fittings etc. So it would be less if you just want a shell.

Ok Hooliesmoolies, that makes sense. Out of that 70K, how much goes to kitchen/fittings? 15k for a high spec?

Yea, agree with you on the work available around London in general, in fact the whole construction industry, extending is much cheaper then moving, at least the former option can be under control by the owner.

Still, 50-70k for a extension is sh loads of cash, considering the amount of time (8wks) and manpower (3ppl) and materials involved. Even if you calculate the cost per sq m, it will cost 60k/15m=4k/m2 or 400/sqft. I guess the builder realised that its their turn to make some serious money.

We are in south west not London and our kitchen extension is nearly finished. It will have taken 16 weeks in total and is costing £50k for build inc electrics, plumbing and plastering. On top of this is kitchen of £15k, flooring of £4k and doors/windows (inc bifolds) of £8.5k. We also need new furniture, so I am thinking if will be over £80k when fully finished and furnished... Horribly expensive but really lovely.

Marmitelover55 - 16wks is quite a lead time, do you mind to give me idea of the previous size and finished size of your kitchen extension? Is it both rear and side?

It is all across the back in an L shape., so kitchen part is longer than diner - think the kitchen is nearly 5m and diner about 1m less. It involved demolishing previous extension and lean to conservatory and then also knocking through between the two rooms in the main house. The roof is quite complicated as the roof over the diner is a lean to sloping roof and roof over kitchen is pitched and joins diner roof in a hip joint (hope I've explained that right...). We are 14 weeks in now - only 2 more to go until we have a kitchen - can't wait!! I have attached a photo in case that helps.

Thanks M55. Very nice. I assume your previous state was pretty similar to the one on the right in the picture? They must be jealous.

Yes although our conservatory didn't come out as far. They have got our architect coming round to do some plans!

Try www.keylinehome.co.uk . They've just done an amazing extension for some friends who seem very happy.

I live in Greenwich and have also recently used Keyline Construction for a kitchen extension amongst other things - I would highly recommend them.

I'll PM you some details of the builder we used

Great stuff guys! Time for me to produce some drawings for quote.

Anyone who meets the very high standards and pases the rigorous accreditaion process of Which? - it is as high or higher than being Trading Standards accredited. so I would be happy to employ anyone from their website with confidence:
trustedtraders.which.co.uk/

My company are there - boasts :)

Hi I'm in SE London and our builders are just nearing finishing our project and we are very happy with them.
They have knocked down walls, built new walls; gutted and redone 2 bathrooms; put in underfloor heating; tiled; plastered; gutted, moved and rebuilt our kitchen; updated electrics; new boiler; replaced all water pipes; etc etc
They have come in on budget and looks like they will finish a week early
The company is Valdex and the person to contact is Slawek on valdex.info or +44 7793 540306 If you do go with them then drop me a line and I can tell you how to get the best out of them.

I can see this is an old thread but does anyone have a recommendation for a good builder in or near SE10? Or anywhere in south east London really.

We've been let down horribly by ours and need to get someone in that we can trust.

Any recommendations very much appreciated.

Thank you, wise people of mumsnet 🙏🏻 😊

I just want to share an update to my message above. My fiancé and I had a horrible with B. Byrne Builders Ltd run by Ben Byrne, who has now closed this company to set up Crown Point Builders Ltd. We've been advised we won't get any justice in the courts but I can at least share my story hear to hopefully inform other potential customers/victims.

We paid Ben to do structural repairs and complete our house renovation when our first builders did some damage (we have the worst luck with builders it seems!). Ben spent over six months on site, charged us over £130k and made barely any progress. He didn't get Building Control to site to see underpinning (which they then wouldn't sign off), he underpinned our house knowing he wasn't insured for it, he charged us luxury prices but provided the worst service. He basically subcontracted out all the work to contractors and then didn't supervise them. We found out the guy he let built the entire back of our house wonky he had just found on a website and never worked with before. He literally just let him loose on our house without any concern for our property. He also tried to hide or, when it was discovered, lie about poor quality work. Even really basic stuff that was wrong like wonky walls and uneven floors he lied to our faces about.

He never bothered to come to site himself so he had no clue of the current status on things and we went round in circles for months because of his lack of leadership. He also tried to charge us for work he hadn't done - absolute classic was defending himself for trying to charge for some roof joists that simply were not there. Apparently they'd been cut to size "so most of the work was done already". It turned out even that wasn't true: there was just a pile of planks in another room. (Which then were taken from site when they left).
You literally could not make this stuff up.

He then folded the business, avoiding doing our repairs. Not before taking out a £50k bounce back loan (supposedly for repairing our house...which didn't happen) that now he doesn't have to repay because the business went bust.

The injustice of this is soul-destroying. He set up Crown Point Builders while B Byrne Builders was being wound up and now he has profiles on builder websites using all the photos of work done by B Byrne Builders to promote his new business! That is just an outright lie, but we can't do anything to stop him. We've lost so much money and had so much stress because of him and he gets to claim his business went bust because of Covid. I guess all we can do is share our story in the hope that no one else has the same horrific experience.