Case Study

Whole-House Refurbishment

Fulham, London

Needle props and scaffolding supporting the rear facade of a Fulham terrace during structural works

Project type

Structural refurbishment

Contract value

£412,000

Programme

34 weeks

Retention

Rachel D. is a chartered surveyor who acts as contract administrator on high-end residential projects. Her client bought a tired Fulham terrace and commissioned a back-to-brick refurbishment: new steels across the rear, re-jointed floors, full re-services. On paper, 30 weeks. In practice, the sort of job where opening up the fabric rewrites the scope monthly.

The main contractor was Steve C., managing director of a second-generation Fulham building firm. Good builder, allergic to paperwork. On previous jobs, variations lived in text messages and got argued about at final account. Both of them had been burned by exactly this kind of project before.

Variations without the arguments

The strip-out found rotten joist ends, a missing padstone and a drain run nobody had drawn. Fourteen variations over the life of the job. Each one was raised in BuildFlow, priced by Steve, and approved or queried by Rachel with the full history recorded: who asked for what, when, at what cost, and what it did to the contract sum.

Because every approved variation flowed straight into the live BoQ, applications for payment always reflected the real, current scope. The final account was agreed in one meeting, because there was nothing left to argue about.

Certification the client could stand behind

Rachel certified each valuation line by line. Where she revised a claimed amount, BuildFlow recorded the revised value alongside the applied value with her reason, and Steve saw exactly what changed and why before the certificate was issued. Transparency replaced the usual month-end phone call.

For her client, the audit trail was the product: every certificate, variation and payment on one timeline she could hand over at practical completion.

“Variations used to be where jobs went sour. Something turns up behind the plaster, you price it in a text message, and a year later you're arguing about whether it was ever agreed. On this job every change was priced, approved and in the contract sum before the work was done. Final account took one cup of tea.”

Steve C.

Managing Director, main contractor

Second-generation Fulham building firm

Documents that file themselves

Engineer's details, revised drawings, quotes for provisional sums: everything went into the project documents hub, where BuildFlow's AI classified each upload automatically. Retention was tracked from day one at 5%, with half released at practical completion and the balance at the end of the defects period, triggered by Rachel when each milestone was reached rather than remembered eighteen months later.

Variations priced, approved and tracked

Payment disputes in 34 weeks

50/50

Retention released at PC and end of defects

“As CA, my job is protecting the client without starving the contractor. BuildFlow let me do both: I certify line by line with reasons the builder can actually see, and my client gets a complete audit trail of every pound. Fourteen variations on a structural refurb and not one dispute. That is not normal, and it is not luck.”

Rachel D.

Chartered Surveyor, Contract Administrator

Acting for a private client