What happens when the drawing is wrong?
A couple of years ago we designed a basement on a job in Bristol. Good design. Properly done. Not one of my designers had set foot on the site.
The groundworkers got going and hit a problem nobody had accounted for. The building next door was still standing. It was not on any plan we had been given.
How bad was it?
Our membrane goes on the back of the wall. They had about six inches to get it in there.
Six inches. It was physically impossible, and I do not mean difficult. I mean it could not be done by anybody, with any amount of skill or patience.
So what were the lads on site supposed to do?
That is the part that has stayed with me. They were stuck between our drawings and the architect’s drawings, being asked to build something that did not exist in the real world, and getting more frustrated by the hour. They were right to be. They kept saying it plainly. I physically cannot do what you are asking me to do.
Nobody had done anything wrong on purpose. That is usually how it goes.
How did it get solved?
I took one of our technical guys to site. He stood where they were standing, looked at what they were looking at, and we sorted it out in hours.
Not weeks. Hours. Because what you see on a screen or on a piece of paper is a vastly different thing from what is in front of you when you are stood in the mud.
Is that not a failure of planning?
I used to think so. I don’t any more.
On Gateway jobs we get involved twelve to eighteen months before a shovel goes in the ground, and the amount of change in that time is astonishing. Somebody moves the pipework, so the slab has to move. An architect decides the facade is going to be glass instead of block. We have Gateway jobs still changing while they are live on site, which is precisely what the process says should not happen.
Changes are not planned and they are not deliberate. But that does not mean you cannot be ready for when they happen.
So what do we do about it?
Two things, one for each side of the drawing.
For architects and engineers, we design bespoke to the conditions of the actual site, not the ideal one. For contractors, we come out and train your team on our materials, so when something shifts they have the knowledge to adapt rather than down tools and wait.
And when you ring us, you get a person. Not a bot, not a ticket number. Somebody who will get in the van if that is what it takes.
Nobody remembers the groundworkers when the ribbon gets cut. They are the first trade on site and out of sight long before anyone moves in. But they are the reason a basement stays dry for thirty years, and they should never be left to fight a drawing on their own.
Whether it’s a Gateway 2 project, a housing site, or a smaller job where you just need the right product at the right price, the goal is the same. We want your build to go well. That’s it.
If you’d like to talk through a project, you know where we are.
The best part of my month is meeting customers. Set up a time for us to meet below.
Always a human. Always available.
