Quantity Surveying & Estimating · Nationwide · Virtual
A Quantity Surveyor for Painters & Decorators.
Housing sites, fit-outs and refurbishment, measured off the drawings and priced properly. Tendered on conditions that protect the rate: areas clear, swept and actually ready, preparation assessed and priced, and snagging paid for rather than absorbed.
From £35 / Hour
Every service on the list, billed by the hour from a single hour. No retainer, no minimum spend.
No Commitment
Use us for one tender or every job. Nothing to sign, nothing to cancel, nobody on your payroll.
Nationwide
We work virtually. Drawings, schedules and accounts travel by email, so no job is out of reach.
The Problem · Where the Money Goes
Decorators Lose It on Paper, Not on the Brush.
The finish is right and the client is happy with it. The margin disappears in a rate that assumed a clean, finished room, and in the months of going back to the same job after everybody else has left.
Priced off 'prepare and decorate'
Three words in a specification that could mean a mist coat and two finish coats on new plaster, or a fortnight of filling, sanding and making good on a refurbishment. Priced without being assessed, it is a guess dressed up as a rate.
Started before it was ready
Sent in while other trades are still working, before floors are clean, before doors are hung, before there is heat or light. The gang works round it, goes back to finish, and does the same room two or three times over.
Snagging that never ends
Everybody else's damage, touched in at the end of the job, week after week, on visits nobody priced. It is the single largest unpaid cost in decorating and it always lands after the money has been agreed.
Coats that were never enough
The specification said two. The substrate, the colour or the opacity needed three. Nobody wrote down which, so the third coat came out of your margin rather than out of a variation.
None of that is a decorating problem. It is a tender problem: every one of those costs is decided by what the price did or did not say before the job started, and by then it is far too late to say it.
The Work · What We Price
Housing Plots, Fit-Outs, Refurbishment.
We price decorating packages of every size and shape, and we turn them round fast, because these enquiries always arrive with a short return date and a week that is already full.
Housing Sites
Priced by house type, scheduled by plot
Every house type measured from the drawings: wall and ceiling areas by finish, skirting, architrave and trim by the metre, doors by leaf and side, windows, stairs, balustrades and metalwork, and priced as a rate per plot. Scheduled across the development so the client sees their commitment plot by plot, and you have a rate that survives two years of the same house type.
Fit-Out & Commercial
Floor by floor, phase by phase
Offices, retail, healthcare, education and hospitality, measured by floor and by phase with the specified system priced as specified. Working hours, phased handovers, protection and access all reflected in the price rather than discovered once the gang is on site.
Refurbishment & Heritage
Where the substrate is the risk
Existing buildings where nobody knows what is under the last three coats until somebody opens it up. We measure what can be measured, price the preparation as an assessed item, and set out plainly what happens when the substrate turns out worse than the survey suggested.
Priced quickly, because the return date is always short. Most of these enquiries come in with days rather than weeks on them. Send it over and we will tell you straight away whether we can turn it round in the time you have.
The Specialism · Release Conditions
Clear, Swept, and Actually Ready to Start.
A decorating rate assumes a finished room, clear of other trades, swept clean, with the heat and light to work in. Almost nobody gets that, so the tender has to say what it assumes and what happens when it is not there.
What it costs when it is not stated
- ▸Started too early, the same room gets decorated twice: once around the other trades, and again properly once they have gone. The rate only ever allowed for one.
- ▸Dust, debris and unswept floors ruin a wet finish, so the work either waits or gets done again. Neither was priced.
- ▸Snagging and making good other people's damage becomes an expectation the moment it is done once for nothing, and it then runs for months after the job is otherwise finished.
- ▸None of it is claimable afterwards, because the price did not say what it assumed. Silence in a tender is always read in the other side's favour.
What we put in the tender
- ▸Areas released complete, clear of other trades, swept clean and ready to decorate before the start time, with a stated rate for return visits and standing time where they are not.
- ▸The works to be genuinely doable when released: doors hung, floors clean, heat, light and ventilation available, and substrates dry enough to take the specified system.
- ▸Remedial works, making good and snagging excluded from the rate, and offered at stated rates so you are paid for them rather than refusing to do them.
- ▸Additional coats beyond the specification, colour changes and additional colours priced as separate rates rather than absorbed.
It also makes the tender list like for like. When nobody states conditions, the cheapest price is simply the one that assumed the most and said the least. Stating them lets the client compare properly, and lets you compete on price rather than on optimism.
The Specialism · Preparation & Coats
Preparation Is the Job. So We Price It.
On most decorating packages the paint is the cheap part and the preparation is the labour. A rate that has not assessed the preparation has not really priced the job at all.
Preparation assessed, not assumed
The actual condition of each substrate looked at and priced: filling, stopping, caulking, sanding, washing down, abrading, stain blocking and making good. Where the condition cannot be known until work starts, it is priced as an assessed provisional item rather than buried in the rate.
Substrate by substrate
New plaster, plasterboard and taped joints, previously painted surfaces, timber, MDF, metal and masonry all take different preparation and different priming, and they take different amounts of labour. Measured and priced as what they are.
Coats priced as coats
The number of coats specified, priced per coat, so an extra coat is a variation with a rate attached rather than an argument. Strong colours, poor opacity and colour changes flagged at tender, when they are still somebody else's decision.
Measured properly
Walls and ceilings by area and finish, trim and skirting by the metre, doors by leaf and side, windows by unit, stairs, balustrades and metalwork counted. Two rooms of the same floor area do not carry the same decorating cost, and this is why.
You keep the build-up. The take-off and the rate build-up come to you with the price, so you can defend the number, value variations against it and reuse it on the next job of the same kind.
After You Win It · Setting the Job Up
Won the Job. Now Set It Up Properly.
The tender is only half of it. What turns a good price into a good year is buying the job to the schedule you priced and keeping the records that make the conditions in your tender worth something.
Material schedules
Paint by system, finish and colour with coverage rates and wastage allowed, plus fillers, caulk, abrasives, primers, sheeting, masking and sundries, measured by plot, floor or area. Use it to buy against your tendered allowance and to see immediately when a house type is consuming more than it was priced at.
Prices and tick sheets
Every plot, room or area priced and listed on a simple sheet before work starts. The supervisor ticks what is complete and the booking is done: no measuring, no valuing half-finished rooms, and the same sheet pays your gangs and supports your application to the client.
Release and condition logs
A one-line record of when each area was released, what state it was in, whether it was actually ready, and how many visits it took. It costs a supervisor a minute a day and it is the entire evidence base for every return visit, standing time and snagging claim you will make later.
The release log is the cheapest document on this page. It is also the one that decides whether the conditions in your tender are a real entitlement or just a paragraph nobody can evidence at the end of the job.
Running the Job · Monthly Commercial Work
Running the Job Without Losing the Paperwork.
Monthly documents that claim what you are owed, price what you were asked to do, and leave a record somebody can use when the job is questioned a year later.
Interim valuations
Monthly applications claiming everything you are owed: areas complete, work in progress, materials on site, return visits, snagging and retention, in the format the contract demands and inside the dates it sets.
Variations valued
Colour changes, additional colours, specification changes, extra coats and areas added after the price was fixed, valued against your tendered rates and confirmed in writing while the person who instructed them is still on site.
Snagging and remedials claimed
The items excluded at tender, priced and claimed as they happen at the rates you stated. This is the money the conditions in your tender were written to protect, and it only arrives if somebody claims it every month rather than mentioning it at the end.
Records for delay and standing
Areas released late, rooms not ready, gangs standing, other trades still working and out-of-sequence visits, recorded at the time on sheets the site manager signs. A signed sheet in March is worth considerably more than a good memory in November.
Built for site supervisors, not surveyors. Everything on this page comes back as a document your team can read, fill in and file. There is no system to log into, no licence to buy and nothing for anybody on site to be trained on.
Settlement · Getting Paid
Getting Paid, and Keeping What You Earned.
The end of a job is negotiated, not calculated. It usually goes badly for whichever side turned up with a folder of delivery notes instead of a valued position.
Final accounts
The package closed on a measured position: areas complete, variations valued, return visits, extra coats and snagging applied, delay costs supported and retention accounted for. Negotiated by somebody who settles them for a living and knows what a normal outcome looks like.
Claims for delay and disruption
Areas released late or not ready, rooms decorated twice, out-of-sequence working and phased handovers that were never in the programme. Set out from the release log in a form the other side is obliged to answer properly.
Payment disputes
Applications cut without explanation, notices served late or not at all, and the statutory deadlines that decide who wins the argument regardless of the merits. Checked when one lands on you, and answered in the same terms.
Retention and the snagging tail
Decorating is the last trade out, so the snagging period and the retention release both fall on you hardest. Both chased and argued properly, rather than written off because the job finished eighteen months ago.
This is where the leakage is. Everything left open across the whole job gets decided in a handful of conversations at the end, usually against someone whose full-time occupation is settling them. Ours is too.
What It Costs · One Rate, Every Service
£35 an Hour. From a Single Hour.
Every service in this document is available at the same rate. Where a piece of work is well defined, we will agree a fixed fee for it before anything starts.
Per Hour, From
Tenders and one-off prices, area take-offs, preparation assessments, rate build-ups against your buying terms, schedules of conditions and exclusions, material and colour schedules, prices and tick sheets, release logs, interim valuations, variations, snagging claims, delay records, final accounts and payment disputes: all of it at the same rate, from a single hour.
A housing site tender
Typically 8 to 15 hours
£280 to £525
Every house type measured and priced by plot, with the preparation assessed and the conditions set out in writing.
A fit-out or refurbishment
Typically 12 to 25 hours
£420 to £875
Measured floor by floor, with the preparation priced as an assessed item rather than buried in a rate per square metre.
Monthly valuation and snagging
Typically 3 to 6 hours a month
£105 to £210
Claims the areas, extra coats, return visits and snagging in the month they happen rather than at the end.
A final account with claims
Typically 12 to 20 hours
£420 to £700
The close of the package argued and evidenced, including the retention and snagging tail that decorating always carries.
Indicative hours, not quotes. Every job is different. We scope the hours before anything starts and you approve them, so there is no open-ended bill at the end of it.
How It Works · Getting Started
Send the Job. Agree the Hours. Get It Back.
No onboarding, no software to learn and nothing for your site supervisors to be trained on. The whole thing runs over email and the phone.
Send us the enquiry
The drawings, the specification, the house types, the room data sheets, or the survey photographs on a refurbishment. A phone call and an email is enough to start, and there is no form to fill in.
We scope the hours
We come back with what is involved, how long it will take at £35 an hour, and whether we can hit your return date. You approve it before anything starts.
You get the work back
A measured, priced tender with the preparation assessed and the conditions set out, material schedules ready to buy against, a valuation ready to go in, or a final account argued and evidenced.
Conditions you can reuse. The schedule of conditions and exclusions we write for one tender can be attached to every price you send out afterwards. Most clients get more out of that one document than anything else we do.
Start with one price. Most clients test us on a single enquiry, usually the one that landed at the worst possible moment, before they use us for anything else. That is exactly how it is meant to work.
Virtual, so nationwide. Drawings, schedules and accounts travel by email. We work with painting and decorating contractors across England and Wales without a penny of travel on the bill, and every deliverable arrives as a document your team already knows how to read.
The Full Schedule · Everything We Produce
The Complete Schedule of Documents.
Take any one of them on its own. Most decorating contractors start with a single price they have not got time for and work outwards from there.
Winning the Work
- ▸Tenders for housing sites
- ▸Prices by house type and by plot
- ▸Fit-out and commercial pricing
- ▸Refurbishment and heritage pricing
- ▸Area take-offs from drawings
- ▸Preparation assessed and priced
- ▸Rate build-ups against your buying terms
Conditions & Exclusions
- ▸Areas released complete and ready
- ▸Clear of other trades and swept clean
- ▸Heat, light and dry substrates
- ▸Rates for return visits and standing
- ▸Remedials and snagging excluded
- ▸Stated rates for snagging and making good
- ▸Additional coats and colour changes
Setting the Job Up
- ▸Material and colour schedules
- ▸Coverage and wastage allowances
- ▸Prices for every plot, room or area
- ▸Tick sheets for weekly booking
- ▸Release and condition logs
- ▸Quality logs for site supervisors
- ▸Cost reporting against the tender
Running It & Getting Paid
- ▸Interim valuations
- ▸Variations valued
- ▸Snagging and remedials claimed monthly
- ▸Records for delay and standing time
- ▸Claims for delay and disruption
- ▸Final accounts and retention release
- ▸Payment disputes and notices
One job or one document. There is no minimum engagement and nothing to sign. If all you need is a schedule of conditions to attach to the prices you already send out, that is a perfectly good place to start.
Put a Quantity Surveyor on Your Next Tender Without Putting One on Your Payroll.
Send us the enquiry with the short return date, the site where you keep going back to the same rooms, or the account that has stalled. We will tell you what is involved and how many hours it will take before you commit to anything.