Seven services. Every one priced from a survey.
We do seven things and we say no to the rest. Each page below carries what the work actually includes, what it excludes by name, and the four conditions in your building that move the number more than any finish you will choose.
7Services, no others
2Markets, separate pricing
412Finished projects behind them
19Years doing only this
Ranges are real and wide. The survey turns a range into one number with the scope attached to it.
What we build
01
One contract, one schedule, one crew. Structure, systems, layout and finishes taken as a single sequencing problem rather than five quotes that meet on your floor.
$180k-$650k€900-1,750/m²14-22 wk
02
It starts at the waste line, not the door fronts. Where the stack already runs decides half the budget and most of the programme.
$65k-$145k€28k-€70k7-11 wk
03
Tanking, falls and a witnessed flood test before a single tile is set. The waterproofing is the job; the tile is the part you see.
$35k-$78k€16k-€42k5-8 wk
04
Rear additions, dormers and second storeys, with the zoning envelope established in writing before anyone draws a line inside it.
$220k-$520k€1,400-2,300/m²20-30 wk
05
Chicago greystones and pre-war two-flats; pombalino and gaioleiro buildings in Lisboa. Repair before replacement, in matched materials.
Scoped per buildingEngineer at survey
06
Coach house and basement units under Chicago's ADU ordinance. Headroom and egress are checked in the first hour, because they are what kills these projects.
$95k-$240k9-16 wk
07
Envelope, airtightness and ventilation before any equipment is sized. A heat pump on an uninsulated house is an expensive way to heat the street.
$40k-$160k€22k-€95k6-12 wk
What we do not do
- New-build houses. Different business, different risk, different crew.
- Design-only packages. We price what we can build and stand behind for two years.
- Work outside the published service areas, however good the project sounds.
- Free estimates. The survey is a piece of work with a deliverable, and it is charged for.
Most people arrive having already chosen. About a third have chosen wrong.
Which of the seven you are actually buying
Two thirds of the whole-home projects we ran last year arrived as kitchen enquiries. Not because anyone was upsold — because a 1958 house with no earth on any circuit outside two rooms is not a kitchen project, whatever the owners wanted it to be. Four rules cover almost every case, and none of them needs a survey to apply.
If you are touching more than two rooms, it is a whole-home job
Not because it is bigger, but because it is sequenced. Three rooms bought as three contracts are three first fixes, three sets of dust containment and three crews who each think the others went first. Bought as one contract it is one programme, and it is usually cheaper than the three quotes added together.
If the house is pre-1960 and unrewired, the electrical comes first
A kitchen built on knob-and-tube or on ungrounded circuits is a kitchen you will open again. We will say this on the phone before you pay for anything, and it is the most common reason we talk somebody out of the job they called about.
If your January bill is the complaint, it is a retrofit and not a boiler
Equipment sized against an uninsulated envelope is an expensive way to heat the street. Envelope, airtightness, then plant — in that order, or the machine is wrong before it is installed.
If you are adding floor area, the envelope decides everything before the drawing
Setback, lot coverage and, in Lisboa, the câmara. We establish what is permissible in writing in week one. Every addition that has gone badly for anyone we know went badly at this step, months before a builder was involved.
If none of these fits, say so on the call. Sending you to a firm that does the thing you actually need costs us nothing and it is the reason 68% of our work is repeat and referral.
Seven services, one standard of evidence.
Every project page carries the defect its survey found, the contracted budget and the real schedule — including the two that ran late.
Most people book the wrong service first.
Two thirds of the whole-home projects we run arrived believing they were kitchens. The survey settles which one you are actually buying, and the drawing is yours either way.