Quantity Surveying & Estimating · Nationwide · Virtual
A Quantity Surveyor for Plastering & Drylining.
Housing sites and complex fit-outs, measured off the drawings and priced quickly. Tendered on conditions that protect the rate: released in single visits, areas clean, and other people's remedials 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
Plasterers Lose It on Paper, Not on the Wall.
The boards go up and the finish is right. The margin disappears in a rate that was never measured, and in the conditions the tender never mentioned, which is why the same job takes three visits instead of one.
Priced off a rate, not a measure
A figure per square metre carried over from the last job, on different ceiling heights, a different board specification and a different level of finish. Get it wrong on plot one and you get it wrong on every plot for two years.
Released in dribs and drabs
Two rooms this week, the landing when the electrician has finished, the last bedroom a fortnight later. Every return visit is another set-up, another strike, another delivery and another day of output you never priced for.
Everybody's damage, absorbed
First fix and second fix put holes in boards, knock corners off beads and scuff finished work. Somebody makes it good. If your tender is silent, that somebody is you, for nothing, for the length of the job.
Areas handed over full of mess
Debris, offcuts, stored materials and two other trades working in the same room. The gang works round it at half output, and the rate assumed a clear room.
None of that is a trowel 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 too late to say it.
The Work · What We Price
Housing Plots, Fit-Outs, Priced Quickly.
We price plastering and drylining packages of every size and shape, and we turn them round fast, because these enquiries always arrive with a short return date and a full week already booked.
Housing Sites
Priced by house type, scheduled by plot
Every house type measured from the drawings: boarding and skimming, dot and dab, stud partitions, ceilings, beads, corners and the wet trades, and priced as a rate per plot. Scheduled across the whole development so the client sees their commitment plot by plot, your valuations become a matter of counting finished plots, and you have a rate that survives two years of the same house type.
Complex Fit-Outs
Floor by floor, phase by phase
Metal stud partitions, linings, MF and suspended ceilings, acoustic and fire-rated systems, taping and jointing to the specified level of finish. Measured by floor and by phase, with the access, ceiling heights, working hours and handover sequence reflected in the price rather than discovered on site.
Everything Between
Refurbishment, commercial, one-offs
Refurbishment, conversions, commercial and one-off work where the information is thin and the return date is short. Measured from whatever exists, priced from your real costs, and returned with the conditions and exclusions written down so the client knows exactly what they are agreeing to.
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
Released Once. Clean. And Not Your Remedials.
A plastering rate assumes a clear room, released once, finished in one visit. If the tender does not say so, the rate is quietly being asked to cover three visits and everybody else's damage.
What it costs when it is not stated
- ▸A room released in three parts is three set-ups, three strikes and three deliveries, for one room's worth of income. The rate only ever allowed for one.
- ▸Making good other trades' damage becomes an expectation the moment you do it once for nothing, and it runs for the length of the contract.
- ▸Working around debris, offcuts and stored materials drops output substantially, and nobody records that it happened.
- ▸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 to be released complete and in single visits, with a stated rate for any return visit caused by part-release.
- ▸Areas to be clean, clear and free from debris, offcuts and stored materials, with a stated rate for clearance or standing time if they are not.
- ▸Remedial and making-good works excluded from the rate, and offered at a stated rate, so you get paid for them rather than refusing to do them.
- ▸The conditions the wet trades actually need: the building weathertight, temporary heat and power available, and reasonable drying time before following trades.
Excluded from the rate, not refused. Every one of these is offered back to the client at a price. You are not being awkward, you are telling them what a clean, single-visit release is worth, and what it costs when they cannot give you one.
The Specialism · How the Price Is Built
Measured Off the Drawings, Not Off a Feel.
A square metre rate is only worth anything if somebody has counted the square metres, and on this trade the things that move the price are rarely the things that get counted.
Areas measured properly
Walls and ceilings measured by finish type and board specification, with openings, reveals and returns taken as they actually are rather than netted off by habit. On a repeat house type, an error of a few square metres a plot becomes real money across a development.
The items that move the rate
Beads, corners, stops, movement joints, scrim and taping to the specified level of finish. They are measured in linear metres and counted per opening, and they are the reason two jobs with the same wall area do not cost the same to build.
Heights, access and output
Ceiling heights, scaffold or tower requirements, staircase and stairwell work, and how far boards have to be carried from where the telehandler can reach. Labour output is set by those, not by the drawing area.
Materials at your terms
Boards, studs, track, plaster, compound, tape and beads priced against the terms you actually buy on, with waste and offcuts allowed properly rather than forgotten and then paid for out of the margin.
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 enquiry 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 having a simple way of booking work from the first week.
Material schedules
Boards by type and thickness, studs and track, plaster, compound, tape, beads and fixings measured by plot, floor or area, in the units your supplier quotes in. Use it to buy against your tendered allowance, to call off against the programme, and to see immediately when the job is consuming more board 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 part-finished rooms, no weekly argument, and the same sheet pays your gangs and supports your application to the client.
Release and condition records
A simple log of when each area was released, what condition it was in 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 and standing-time claim you will make later.
Set it up once, at the start. The whole system is built in the first week, before anybody is too busy to do it. The release log in particular is worth more than everything else on this page put together, and it is the cheapest of the three.
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, remedials and retention, in the format the contract demands and inside the dates it sets.
Variations valued
Specification changes, added partitions, revised layouts, upgraded board and changes to the level of finish, valued against your tendered rates and confirmed in writing while the person who instructed them is still on site.
Return visits and remedials
The items excluded at tender, priced and claimed as they happen at the rates you stated. This is the money the conditions on your tender were written to protect, and it only arrives if somebody claims it monthly.
Records for delay and standing
Areas released late or in part, rooms not clear, gangs standing and out-of-sequence working, 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 and remedials 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 in part, rooms that were not clear, 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.
Assistance getting paid
Where an account has stalled, we set out the position, answer the contractor's surveyor in their own terms and press it to a settlement, including support if it goes as far as adjudication.
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, rate build-ups against your buying terms, schedules of conditions and exclusions, material schedules, prices and tick sheets, release logs, interim valuations, variations, return visits and remedials, delay records, claims, final accounts and payment disputes: all of it at the same rate, billed by the hour, 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 release conditions and exclusions set out in writing.
A fit-out package
Typically 12 to 25 hours
£420 to £875
Measured floor by floor from the drawings and specification, priced against your buying terms and your gangs' real output.
Monthly valuation and variations
Typically 3 to 6 hours a month
£105 to £210
Claims the areas, return visits and remedials in the month they happen, rather than arguing about them at the end.
A final account with claims
Typically 12 to 20 hours
£420 to £700
The close of the package argued and evidenced against a surveyor whose full-time occupation is settling them cheaply.
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 account that has stalled. 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 conditions and exclusions set out, material schedules ready to buy against, a valuation ready to go in, or a final account argued and evidenced.
Fast, because it has to be. These enquiries arrive with days on them, not weeks. Tell us the return date when you send it and we will tell you straight away whether we can make it.
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 plastering and drylining 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 plastering and drylining 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 pricing floor by floor
- ▸Refurbishment and one-off pricing
- ▸Area take-offs from drawings
- ▸Beads, corners and linear items measured
- ▸Rate build-ups against your buying terms
Conditions & Exclusions
- ▸Areas released complete, in single visits
- ▸Rates for return visits caused by part-release
- ▸Areas clean and free from debris
- ▸Rates for clearance and standing time
- ▸Remedials and making good excluded
- ▸Stated rates for remedial works
- ▸Weathertight, heat, power and drying time
Setting the Job Up
- ▸Material schedules by plot or area
- ▸Buying schedules against the tender
- ▸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
- ▸Return visits and remedials claimed
- ▸Records for delay and standing time
- ▸Claims for delay and disruption
- ▸Final accounts
- ▸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 the same rooms keep coming back, 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.