The building
An interwar red brick mansion block with stone dressings in the City of Westminster, rising seven to eight storeys above shops on a busy high street. The flats stayed occupied and the shops kept trading for the whole of the works.
The brief
The managing agent needed the building’s external fabric put right and redecorated: weathered brick and pointing, decayed window cills, tired joinery and stonework that needed cleaning, without closing the street frontage or the homes above.
What we did
Avalon specified the works, ran the tender, and administered the contract as Contract Administrator and Principal Designer under CDM 2015, with a separate appointment to agree licences with the neighbouring shops for the scaffold.
- SpecificationFull external redecoration, joint sealing, weather pointing and brick replacement, metal goods, new lead to window cills, resin repairs to windows, stone cleaning, joinery repairs and glazing.
- TenderIssued to four contractors. Two priced, at around £430,000 and £579,000, and the lower bid was negotiated to a contract sum of £372,000.
- ContractJCT Minor Works, amended for prime cost sums, with retention and liquidated damages set to protect the employer.
- AccessA fully sheeted and alarmed scaffold over the shopfronts, held as a prime cost sum so the true access cost was paid and no more.
- Controlled by provisional sumsResin repairs and new lead cills instructed as found, against provisional sums, so cost tracked what the scaffold revealed.
The standards
The works were administered under a JCT contract in line with the RICS Black Book on interim valuations and final accounts, with leaseholders consulted under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and health and safety duties carried under the CDM Regulations 2015.
The extra work the scaffold uncovered was paid for out of sums the contract already held.
The outcome
On site in September and handed over the following April, after seven interim certificates. The contingency, the roof sum and the window replacement sum were not needed and were omitted, absorbing the extra brick, stone, joinery and glazing work found along the way. The final account closed at around £348,000.
Read more about our Major Works, Managed and contract administration services.
