Footings & Excavation in Hinckley, priced in writing before anything starts.
Groundworks decide whether everything after them runs to programme, and in Hinckley there are three things we look at before quoting.
Trees first. On shrinkable clay a foundation near a mature tree has to go deeper than standard, sometimes considerably deeper, and occasionally the answer is a different foundation altogether. This is the most common reason a groundworks price moves between quotation and dig, so we establish it with a trial hole rather than assume it.
Ground history second. Hinckley was an industrial town and the hosiery factories were interleaved with the housing rather than kept apart from it, particularly around Druid Street. What sits under a back garden on a plot that once had a works on it is not always the ground you would choose. We dig to find bearing rather than to reach a figure on a drawing, and the inspector will want to see the same.
Access third. Getting a machine onto a tight plot near the centre with no side entry is sometimes simply not possible, and the job becomes a hand dig or a conveyor job. That is a real difference in cost and programme and it belongs in the price at the start rather than arriving as a variation in week two.
Everything is inspected before it is covered. We book the inspections and we do not pour over an unseen trench. Our footings and excavation page explains our approach.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our footings & excavation page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Hinckley street to the next.
Muck away is the half of groundworks nobody costs properly. A grab lorry needs somewhere legal to stand, and on the narrow streets near the centre that is a highway matter for Leicestershire County Council rather than something to sort on the morning. Where a machine cannot reach the rear, a hand dig is several times the labour for the same hole, and we put that in the price at quotation stage.
Nothing gets dug until we know what is already in the ground. Gas, water, electricity and telecoms run through gardens in positions that often bear no relation to where anyone expects, and on the older streets around the centre the records are the least reliable of all. We scan before breaking ground. It costs an hour, and it is the difference between an ordinary morning and an emergency call to a utility.
Part of our wider building work in Hinckley.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
