The same rubble
has two prices.Paperwork decides.

Because what a processor may do with it depends on what is known about it. Rubble arriving from a demolition that was traced through a recognised follow-up scheme, with the corresponding certificate, is accepted as having a low environmental risk profile, and that allows the crusher to produce certified recycled granulates from it. Rubble with no such traceability has to be treated as high risk: handled separately, processed differently, charged at a materially higher rate, and in some cases simply turned away. The difference is not in the concrete. It is in whether anyone can show what was in the building before it came down.

Above the volume thresholds laid down by the regulations, which differ between non-residential and residential buildings. The clearest of them is a thousand cubic metres for non-residential buildings; residential buildings have their own, higher threshold, and rather than quote a figure we would have to qualify, we establish the position for your specific project in writing before quoting. The timing matters more than the number: the plan has to exist before the permit application. A demolition that begins without one cannot acquire it retrospectively, and the rubble is then stuck in the expensive category.

No, and conflating the two causes real problems. The certificate connected with selling a building constructed before 2001 is an obligation of the seller in a transaction. What applies here is different: before works are undertaken, an asbestos inventory of the workplace is required under the legislation on the welfare of workers, and it exists to protect the people doing the work. A seller's certificate does not discharge it, and having had one does not mean an inventory is unnecessary. Where asbestos is found and its removal is reserved to a recognised undertaking, we stop and a recognised undertaking does that part.

No, and nobody may. For works requiring a permit the involvement of an architect is required by law, and the architect's statutory mission includes supervising the execution of the works — which is precisely why the profession is legally incompatible with that of contractor. An architect cannot supervise a job they are also building. If a contractor offers you an all-in package with the architect included, that is the question to put to them. We build to the architect's drawings and the architect stays independent of us.

Because a price covering what nobody has seen is either inflated to cover the worst case or heading for an argument. In an older building, opening a wall regularly reveals a missing lintel, a chimney doing unexpected structural work, or a partition that turns out to be carrying a floor. We quote the opening up on its own, look, and then agree the work and the price for what is actually there. It is less comfortable at the quotation stage and considerably less expensive by the end.

Only in writing, and only where it is genuinely within our control. Dates on building work depend on permits, on inspections carried out by third parties, on weather, and on other trades being where they said they would be. A contractor who promises a firm date across all of that is making a promise about other people's behaviour. We will give an honest estimate, tell you what it depends on, and tell you promptly when something moves rather than at the end.