cockercas Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Anyone else in the building trade. Seems around my end things are picking up. Gone from no work and thinking about folding the business to more work than I can handle. Working 12-15 hours a day. Even earning a bit of profit. Is it picking up anywhere else Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul T Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Good for you mate! I'm in design and it's deader than a dead thing The company I currently work for always manage to pick up a reasonable amount - I did umpteen new build Tescos and two hospitals last year, and I'm currently doing half a dozen new builds for Network Rail. It's hellish tedious work though and I leave at the end of this month. Due to a **** up I don't start my new job (if ever :blink:) until the beginning of December. To cut a long story short the £30m project I was to work on has been called in as part of the Planning process and the Practice has no more work for me until then so they delayed my start by 6 months . Phoned/emailed some agencies and mates and they are all struggling so no real chance of getting anything else. Sector wise; in Education, there are a lot of schools who need to extend, since new-builds went out with the bound-to-fail BSF programme, but it's still very early days and they need to be done dirt cheap to suit limited budgets. Healthcare work is slowing up since the NHS Trusts seem to be basically skint. Residential (speculative) is virtually dead, though I know a couple of developers who are buying land like fury while it's cheap. Commercial (speculative) is dead, but the bigger supermarkets seem to be doing ok. Only the smaller builders doing domestic works seem to be doing reasonably well, but the major part of the industry is still struggling and will be for quite some time to come. On the plus side, I have several months free to do up the house some more and get some decent shooting in at harvest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Im a contractor and have been pulled out until may this year,may was a 4 day week and had 3 wks off in june,got a bit dribbling in now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artschool Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 I think things are picking up now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cushies Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 At the moment it's affordable housing that's keeping things going here, private houses have virtually stopped in some areas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linny Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 I'm a joiner and building contractor and there is not a lot about at the moment around here. very quiet but we will get by just small domestic work and then the ones who want you to work for nowt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattSoanes Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Im a plant operator on the books, we have just had our first payrise in 3 yrs!! Things are defo on the up in these parts it would seem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kron Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Things seem to be up round here too. Manufacturing, higher education and a bit of commercial seem to be the sectors we're picking up most from. Also our qs department is doing very well out of retail. We could really do with recruiting but the upturn is probably still not robust enough to justify the risk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddy Galore! Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Stacked out at the minute, 7 day weeks if i want (which i don't) got quite a bit on the horizon too, will be squirreling some away for the winter when everything dies down again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poontang Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 I work for a fairly small joinery company. We seem to have picked up a fair bit over the last couple of months. Order book full 'til Oct/Nov, just had a pay rise, and we've taken on another 2 joiners. Things looking up at the moment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockercas Posted July 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 Glad you lot on the books are getting pay rises. I bet that I never get the wages I was earning before the recession. 3 years ago (I think) sites paid £400 a thousand bricks and £16 a meter block work (10 blocks in a square meter). On average I lay 1000 bricks aday and on the long walls was doing 1600 a day so was raking it in. Now in the last 2 years I've built 2 multi million pound houses for the grand total of £000 only earnt my wages but things have picked up so finishing 3 extensions,a house (another million £ plus )and a renovation. And we have 5/6 in the pipeline to start. But I'm only making marginal profits on it. Hopefully things will pick up round the rest of the country and I can get back to making big money again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggest Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 I'm on the design side and I don't seem to have enough hours in the day at the moment. Which certainly isn't a bad thing. A lot of contractors and suppliers I have spoken to seem to be seeing the market start to pick up, so I think confidence is starting to build. As our design work has picked up it shouldn't be too long until the contractors start picking up to. We are not out of the woods yet by any means, but I reckon we are definetly heading in the right direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksdad Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 (edited) Nowt round here, any jobs are always snapped up my cheap foreign builders who will take £25 a day cash in hand.... Last job I priced was fitting bathrooms and tiling 8 newbuilds, I based my price on £80 per 9 hour day: didn't even get near Edited July 5, 2011 by jacksdad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ack-ack Posted July 5, 2011 Report Share Posted July 5, 2011 (edited) Hang in there chaps. I've wound a fair few squids out of the mortgage and if it weren't for that I'd be in trouble. Got a fair bit of work on but seem to be running to stand still. Big job coming up in September so a 12 month slice of that will do nicely Edited July 6, 2011 by ack-ack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben0850 Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 The architecture side of things is still very poor, notary new commissions and those that do come through are for half the fees. Over the last three years I've been on a four day week, laid off and now the company I have been with for the last year or so are putting everyone on consultation. To be honest I think this year was always going to be a rough one for the economy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silpig5 Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 Im a plant operator on the books, we have just had our first payrise in 3 yrs!! Things are defo on the up in these parts it would seem you defo dont work for mervin lambert then !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyp Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 I'm a self employed cladding and Curtain Walling designer and it's pretty dead at the moment, has been for a while now. I can't see the big projects starting again in the near future. I'm just starting a chimeny sweep buisness for someing to do through the winter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al4x Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 any of you quiet people any good at making timber windows let me know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canis Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 Im a project manager/Mechanical design engineer for a public sector client We are not quite back to how things where in 2008, but 2010/11 wasn't a bad year for me and so far 2011/12 looks better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark@mbb Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 You all know the old saying make hay while the sun shines the building trade has only picked up while the sun is shining wait till the winter starts to arrive and the cuts take effect you will see a mood change then the country is on its axxe and it aint getting any betteruntil the big developers start reduce the dole queue and the goverment start to listen to the people and zero rate domestic properties sorry for the rant Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artschool Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 You all know the old saying make hay while the sun shines the building trade has only picked up while the sun is shining wait till the winter starts to arrive and the cuts take effect you will see a mood change then the country is on its axxe and it aint getting any betteruntil the big developers start reduce the dole queue and the goverment start to listen to the people and zero rate domestic properties sorry for the rant Mark You mean zero rate extensions? New build resi is zero rated. They could also get rid of stamp duty while they are at it, imagine getting taxed for trying to put a roof over your families head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark@mbb Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 no mate i mean zero rate all work on domestic properties as they pay enough tax and if they work it right it would double the revenue from the building trade and possibly control the black market because with vat @ 20% the black market will be rife :yp: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artschool Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 no mate i mean zero rate all work on domestic properties as they pay enough tax and if they work it right it would double the revenue from the building trade and possibly control the black market because with vat @ 20% the black market will be rife :yp: Yes so you mean domestic extensions, new build domestic is already zero rated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark@mbb Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 new build has always been zero rated and if empty so so many years the reduce the rate to 5% and disabled is also reduce the working man pays through the nose maybe a revolution is what is called for rant over Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james79 Posted July 6, 2011 Report Share Posted July 6, 2011 i work for a big construction company and we are flat out at the moment with alot of work on books well into next year we have been busy since the start of the year but had a bad bad few years before that we even got a £500 bonus last week Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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