Edinburgh stone, Edinburgh ground, Edinburgh weather

Where we started

The business started as a one-man surveying outfit working out of a flat in Marchmont. The first ten years were spent walking buildings, writing reports, and quietly building a reputation among local solicitors and insurers for telling people the truth about their walls.

Demand for the actual repair work followed. Today the team includes chartered engineers, ticketed groundworkers, no-dig drainage technicians and an in-house piling crew. Every part of a subsidence job, from the first crack monitor to the final invoice, is run by people who answer to the same office.

How we work

Diagnosis first. We do not quote for underpinning before we know what is moving and why. A site visit is followed by drainage CCTV where appropriate, monitoring where movement is uncertain, and trial pits where ground conditions need confirming. Only then is a scheme designed.

Schemes are signed off by a chartered engineer in writing. Works are carried out by our own crews, not subbed out. Sites are protected, dust-sealed and cleared at the end of every shift because most of our jobs are in occupied homes.

What we will not do

We will not recommend underpinning when stitching will hold. We will not quote for the works without quoting for the diagnosis first. We will not sign off a scheme our engineers are not happy with, and we will not work to a deadline that is dangerous.

Most of our enquiries come through word of mouth from solicitors, surveyors, factors and previous clients. That only works if we keep doing the job the way we say we will.

Values

Three things matter on every job. Honesty, because owners are usually frightened and need straight information. Engineering, because guesses cost more than fixes. And tidiness, because the home stays lived in while we are in it.

If you would like to talk to us about a building you are worried about, please get in touch. There is no charge for a first conversation.