Fabric
General Building Services
Brickwork, roofing, groundworks and the repairs that hold a house together.
General Building in London
The unglamorous work that decides whether everything else you spend money on lasts.
Not every job is a conversion or a renovation. A great deal of what keeps a London property sound is brick, mortar, lead, gutter and drainage — and it is the work most commonly done badly, because it is hidden and because cheap looks identical to correct for the first two winters.
We take on general building work across Greater London, from a single chimney rebuild to a full external overhaul. If a survey has flagged something on your property and you want to know what is genuinely urgent and what a surveyor has listed to cover themselves, that is a conversation we are happy to have before you commit to anything.
Options
What we take on
Individual works or an external package priced together.
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01Brickwork and repointing
Rebuilds, new openings, arches, chimney stacks, crack stitching and full-elevation repointing in a mortar matched to the original for colour, strength and joint profile.
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02Roofing
Slate and tile renewal, flat roof recovering in GRP or single-ply, chimney flashing, parapet gutters, fascia, soffit and rainwater goods.
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03Groundworks and drainage
Foundations, underpinning support works, new drain runs, soakaways, gullies and CCTV investigation of existing systems.
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04Damp and timber
Diagnosis first. Sub-floor ventilation, bridged cavities, failed DPC, penetrating damp at parapets, and treatment or replacement of affected timber.
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05External works
Garden walls, patios, driveways with proper falls and drainage, steps, and render repair or full re-render.
What you get
How we approach it
Lime where lime belongs
Solid-wall Victorian brickwork repointed in a matched lime mortar, not cement — which traps moisture and spalls the brick face within a few frost cycles.
Lead done to code
Flashings, soakers and valleys sized and fixed to Lead Sheet Association guidance, with proper expansion joints rather than one continuous run that splits.
Drainage proven, not assumed
CCTV survey before and after where drains are part of the job, so what you have paid for is evidenced.
Matched materials
Reclaimed London stock, Staffordshire blue, slate and clay tile sourced to match what is already there — the difference between a repair and a patch.
Before you start
Worth knowing
The items below are where projects most often stall. We raise them at survey stage, not halfway through.
Scaffold is not an extra
Any work above single-storey height needs a compliant scaffold with handrails and toe boards. We price it in; be suspicious of quotes that do not.
Cracks are not all subsidence
Most cracking in London houses is thermal or historic settlement that has stopped moving. We will tell you when it warrants a structural engineer and when it warrants filler.
Conservation areas
Changing a roof covering or a window material in a conservation area can need consent even where the work is like-for-like in your view but not in the council's.
Waste carrier duty
Construction waste must go through a licensed carrier with transfer notes. Fly-tipped waste traced back to your address remains your liability.
Where we work
General Building across London
We deliver this service across all 33 London boroughs. Pick your area for local planning context, typical property types and recent work nearby.
Coverage mapFAQs
General Building — your questions answered
The questions we are asked most often about this service. If yours is not here, call us — we would rather answer it now than after you have committed.
Yes, within reason. A chimney repair, a section of repointing or a drainage investigation is worth doing properly, and small jobs are how most of our long-standing clients first found us.
Send the survey over. We will read it, visit, and come back with a list separated into what is urgent, what should be done within a couple of years, and what the surveyor has listed for their own protection.
Yes — reclaimed stock is readily available and we match for colour, texture and size, then match the mortar joint profile as well. A repair you can spot from the pavement is a failed repair.
For landlords and managing agents with several properties, yes. A planned annual inspection of roofs, gutters and external fabric costs a fraction of the reactive repairs it prevents.
Free quotation
Thinking about general building?
Let us take a look.
Tell us what you are planning and we will arrange a free site survey and a written, itemised quotation — with no obligation and no sales visit.