Footings & Excavation in Warwick, priced in writing before anything starts.
Groundworks in Warwick carry a consideration that most towns do not, and it is worth raising before anybody is committed to a programme.
In the historic core the council may attach an archaeological condition to a permission that involves excavation. What that means in practice is that the dig is watched, or investigated first, and that costs both money and time. It is not a refusal, it is not unusual and it is not a reason to abandon a project. It is a reason to have the conversation at the budgeting stage rather than when the machine is standing idle.
The second factor is what you are digging next to. Buildings and garden walls of this age sit on very little foundation, built in lime mortar and entirely intolerant of a trench opened alongside them in one go. Excavation next to them is sequenced, sometimes supported, and never rushed for the sake of a hire rate. Where the wall is shared, that is party wall territory.
Third is the ordinary one. On shrinkable clay a foundation near a mature tree goes deeper than standard, and in a conservation area that tree is protected as well. A trial hole answers this before an open trench does.
Everything is inspected before it is covered. Our footings and excavation page explains how we approach foundations and site preparation.
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 Warwick District 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 Warwick street to the next.
Getting a machine to the back of a long central plot with no side entry is frequently impossible, and the job becomes a hand dig, which is several times the labour for the same hole. That belongs in the price at the start rather than arriving as a variation.
Nothing gets dug until we know what is already down there. Services in a town rebuilt in stages over three centuries run in positions no record reflects, so we scan before breaking ground.
Where an archaeological condition applies, it is worth understanding what it actually means for the job. Usually it is a watching brief, meaning an archaeologist attends while the excavation is carried out and records anything found. It is a cost and a diary constraint rather than an obstacle, and the way to keep it small is to programme it properly instead of calling somebody at short notice once the machine is already standing on site.
Part of our wider building work in Warwick.
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.
