26/02/2022
Choosing a contractor for your loft conversion
Disclaimer
This page is intended to help individuals when they decide to have a loft conversion done on their home. I will make no mention of companies nor individuals who I have had dealings with, and I would ask that no companies, individual trades people or suppliers are mentioned in any comments or posts. If seen, these will be removed.
I am neither pointing you towards one contractor, nor away from another, just sharing my experience.
My chosen contractor utilised sub-contractors so it is natural that a lot of my experience will inevitably focus on that scenario. I cannot compare nor contrast my experience to those who have used companies with direct employees.
Background
A few years ago my wife and I decided to add space and hopefully value to our home by having a loft conversion done. This was to add 2 bedrooms, one with ensuite, with a dormer to the rear and twin Velux windows to the front, a fairly common configuration I assume. We chose our contractor and work began around….
Work began early 2020 and ceased around May 2020 once the relationship with the contractor had broken down and was beyond repair.
I want to share some of my experiences, what I did then and how I would do things differently.
Choosing your contractor.
Rightly or wrongly, we assumed that it would be best to opt for a company that was both local and specialised in loft conversions, rather than a general builder. We used the internet to try and find out about local companies who offered this service. While this does give you the opportunity to do a lot of research from the comfort of your home, you have to understand that not all that you read is verifiably true or necessarily accurate. I would suggest you keep your wits about you and think logically about what you can (or perhaps cannot) see.
Some examples.
• You may see a bad review which raises several issues. Subsequent reviews are then made over a short period of time, and over the course of these reviews the issues raised in the BAD review are seemingly addressed. Is that a coincidence?
• Look at the review history over a longer period. What is the average gap between reviews, a month, perhaps 2, 3 or 4? If there is a sudden influx of reviews in a short period of time, think, could the contractor possibly have completed several jobs in that period of time? Looking back on my experience, we have had prolonged periods of lockdowns where trades people could not possibly work. Yet positive reviews continued to appear. Were they just late being posted up?
• Some companies or individuals opt to use social media pages (Facebook, Instagram etc) to advertise their services. Whilst some are transparent, others may not allow public comments. Ask yourself, why would that be? Why would they prevent anyone from commenting freely?
Agreeing the works
Once you have shortlisted contractors for quoting, you need to make a basic list of works to be completed. List the rooms involved and other common areas, hallways, stairs etc.
When you have a representative in your home you will be having a lengthy discussion, perhaps over several hours, and there will be a lot of information going back and forth.
Make notes as you go, no matter how long this takes. Remember, this discussion will form the basis of the specification of works, so you should ensure that everything you discussed (and agreed) is included in the final spec. It is all too easy to gloss over things quickly and assume they are agreed and included, only to find out otherwise much further down the line. You need to be explicitly clear what is the responsibility of your contractor, and what may be left to you yourself to organise. Finding out during the middle of a conversion that you need to find a trades person and/or materials for a job that was spoken about but not included in the specification is a nightmare that will give you intense stress and can cause lengthy delays to the completion of the work.
My advice once you have a final specification is to check it, check it again, then ask at least one trusted person to cast their eyes over it. Any errors or corrections must be sorted out NOW, before anything is signed, deposits made or start dates agreed.
You’ve chosen your preferred contractor.
Okay, so you have your contractor, and between you there is an agreed specification of works. Now, check the contract and the small print. Then check it again, and if in any doubt take professional advice on the ramifications of what might be in the small print. Then think about the contract, what is going to happen and when, how is the build going to proceed, and what happens when disagreements occur. Because they will.
Sub-contractors
Is all the work being carried out by direct employees of the company? Or are they using sub-contractors? If it’s all being done by direct employees then you will have a single point of responsibility and accountability i.e., the company.
BUT, if they are sub-contracting some of the work out, you will want to know details of the companies or individuals. More importantly, you need to know where your guarantees for workmanship lie. My chosen company utilised sub-contractors.
Some self-employed/sole traders may be fairly transient, going from firm to firm; this makes it hard to check their credentials. Not 2 years since my conversion was done, I have concerns with the workmanship on my roof. These concerns may or may not be well founded but they are there nonetheless (this is explained later). Looking at my paperwork, the small print says the guarantee lies with the sub-contractor. My schedule though has the first name of an individual, so I do not even know the name of the company who actually installed the roof! Dumb, I know, but again I’m putting this out there so other’s hopefully do not repeat some of my mistakes.
Segregation of duties
This applies in the case of a company that uses sub-contractors.
You effectively have a set of individuals who have their own specific tasks to complete and with no obligation or consideration towards any of the other trades. Their tasks may be identified as “Electrics First Fix”, “Plumbing Second Fix” etc.
Take the case where you are having a bathroom cabinet installed. The cabinet may have a built-in light, and so naturally the wiring will be done by the electrician. But the electrician says the plumber must hang the cupboard as he is installing the bathroom. The plumber says he is installing the white goods and pipework, the carpenter should hang the cupboard. The carpenter says he doesn’t do bathroom’s. And so it goes on. Quite often the only people working at the property are sub-contractors, with no-one from the prime company to manage, oversee it and iron out these sorts of issues.
“We can sort that out at the time”
This sort of statement should be viewed as overly vague, and open to different interpretations, and frankly (financially) dangerous.
When you agree, for example, a set of 4 spotlights in a room, that is what will be costed for in the contract. If you decide that in fact 8 lights are required, you may find that you are directed to make a separate arrangement with the electrician once the work is underway. Look out for things like lights, sockets etc., it is easy to glance over these but when you realise you need more, you may find yourself with added expense. An electrician may say it is an extra £50 per light, and you pretty much have to take it or leave it, because the ceiling is soon to be boarded up and plastered.
Extra 4 lights? That’ll be £200; another 2 sockets? Another £100….it soon starts to add up.
Similarly, look closely at things like radiators. Does every room have one? Towel radiators in the bathroom?
Remember, reducing the numbers of lights, sockets, radiators etc will reduce the overall cost of the build and hence make the price look more favourable.
The mess
Oh boy, the mess. Nothing can prepare you for the mess if you are having this done whilst living in the property. NOTHING.
They will tell you that much of the work is done without entering your living areas, they will go in through the roof, and will not break through to the living areas until it is absolutely necessary. They will say they take their boots off in ‘living’ areas or wear overshoes.
Whilst it is absolutely true that there is no way to make an omelette without cracking an egg, the bottom line is that to the workers, this is a building site. To you, it is your cherished home.
And here again, the problem of accountability raises its head. If you have plaster on your carpet, it is fair to assume the plasterer has done it. If there is a slight leak in the pipework, it’s down to the plumber, right?
But what happens if, say, there is coffee spilt on your stair carpet? And no-one takes responsibility? You would imagine that transit areas to/from your loft would be sheeted up properly and protected. But no. If the plasterer is working in a bathroom, he may sheet that room up. But not the stairs and hall. And once he is done, he naturally takes 'his' sheets with him.
Anyone there?
It might also be that trades will behave in a certain manner when they know the householder is present, but that will change when you are not there. On occasions we worked from home in our front room, which has a glass panel door. The times we saw a tradesperson come straight in, only to suddenly brake and sort their boots out when they saw that we were in.
Our stair and landing carpets were by no means new, but they did have a year or two left in them. We had to renew them as soon as the job ended.
My advice would be to photograph such areas before any work is done, get it in writing who is going to sheet up and agree what is acceptable and what is not. Everything will get dusty, even the dust gets dusty! But if you find plaster trodden into your carpet, that’s not acceptable, and it’s not down to you to rectify it.
The finish
Unless you agree otherwise and get your contractor to decorate as part of the contract, you may well assume that once the conversion has been done, all thats left to do is decorate to your taste, right? Wrong.
New door frames may need sanding, joints may need filling. Check if this is included, will the wood be primed perhaps?
If you have opted for pre-finished doors (as I did) once they are adjusted who will re-finish the edges that have been cut and/or planed to size?
Part of the loft conversion will entail installing a new set of stairs and balustrades. How will this tie in with the old ones? My banister was cut down to enable the new stairway into the loft. I had specified softwood spindles with an Oak handrail. I wrongly assumed that the remainder of the old banister would be included in the new work, so that they matched. Wrong.
Over to the sub-contractor again…” Yes, that will be another £500”.
The red flags
Looking back on my installation, I now realise that there were several ‘red flags’ along the way which I should have been more aware of and acted upon sooner.
As the build progresses you see less and less of the actual company directors/employees, and notice that the only people working now are sub-contractors. You may find that you end up liaising between them to get things done, effectively you become project micro-manager.
Talking to the trades, you get to hear that they are unhappy, for some it is the last time they will work for this company (see again transient workers, above), they are owed money, from previous jobs, etc.
They may talk a lot about the other jobs they are involved in, as there are *always* others on the go. I did not want to hear or know about the next job they were doing, because mine was still not finished!
Some may mention how the owners are being described as “picky or fussy” – I bought oak doors to be installed, and the manufacturer specified 3 hinges per door. They were installed with just 2, and I had to have an argument to get this corrected.
End Game
Once you approach the end you just want it all done. You’ve been through what you think is the worst of the disruption to normal daily living, and you just want your new rooms decorated and furnished so you can start to enjoy them.
You go around and make a snag list. Some things aren’t yet finished, or not done how you thought they would be, and can they make good, please. Except, by now you will have paid all or most of the money, and therein lies the problem; you have no leverage left. All the companys focus is now on the next job (and perhaps the one after that), so you are no longer as important to them.
I retained £1000 as a token gesture, thinking this would be sufficient in the case of any outstanding jobs/snags. In my case (once the relationship had broken down) they were more than happy to write this off. The value of work to put everything on the snag list right equated to 2 or 3 times this amount. I say the value of work rather than the cost, because I ended up doing a lot of the work myself, as by now all my funds were gone.
