A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BUILDER…
Article appeared in Professional Builder, May 2008
Watkinson Construction Ltd is a small family run business run by Dave Watkinson. Priding themselves on quality workmanship, Dave and his team build new properties and extensions in and around Derby, Nottingham and Leicester.
In addition to Dave, his wife Tracey, as company secretary, looks after the paperwork. Matt Watkinson, Dan Selby and Jake Osbourne complete the team
The company also uses a number sub-contractors who Dave has known for many years. Will Tindall and Trevor Williamson do the plumbing, Alistair Derek and Steve Smedley the electrical work, Kev Mcdowall and Glen Jones the plastering and Mark Southern helps out with joinery when required.
Having known each other for many years the group ensures that the transition from one trade to another is seamless, causing as little stress to the normal every day life of the company’s customers.
For Dave and his team every day is different. The following describes a Friday in March. With the weather good the customer is happy and the contract is going well!
A day in the life of a builder;
| 6.00am | Alarm goes off and out of bed to make a cup of tea. | |
| 6.30am | Showered, dressed and ready so walk up to office and check e-mails. Print of an invoice and consider what materials, plant etc we will need for the day ahead. Give Tracey a list of things to sort and organise for the day. | |
| 7.30am | Jake arrives. Shortly followed by Dan. | |
| 7.35am | Load up tipper with various tools and mixer etc which from today will remain on site. | |
| 7.45am | Set of to site which fortunately isn’t too far away so our journey time is short. | |
| 8.00am | Arrive, unload and chat to customer. | |
| 8.15am | Start work. Having recently started a two storey extension to the side of a property, today we are completing the drainage and installing two inspection chambers for foul and surface water to service both the customers house and the neighbours. Also finish the excavations for foundations. |
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| 9.15am | Phone local building control to arrange an afternoon visit to inspect drains and trench. | |
| 9.25am | Dan heads off to builders merchants as we need some timber to shutter trench where we have dug away to install inspection chambers and removed the old ones which were where the new kitchen / utility room will be. | |
| 9.30am | Jake and I cut and put pipes together which is turning out to be a little awkward as there are a lot of pipes and they run over and under each other. This includes a toolbox talk for Jake about why the bends should be as sweeping and large as possible to allow easy rodding should it be required. | |
| 10.00am | Dan returns with the materials we need so we can complete the job. | |
| 10.10am | After a well deserved cup of tea, Dan digs the remaining foundation trench whilst Jake drives the dumper to remove the soil so the grab man can reach it to take it away. Meanwhile I put the final pieces together for the drain runs. | |
| 11.15am | A little careful digging required in order not to damage gas pipe. | |
| 11.20am | I call the grab man to confirm for the afternoon. | |
| 11.25am | More digging but this time by hand to clean out bottom of trenches. | |
| 12.15am | Lunch – there’s a well known burger outlet round the corner so the lads go to the drive through. I take the opportunity to make some calls to customers and supplier As a company we have a good relationship with many suppliers but in this case Gavin the manager at the local Jewson’s came up with the best deal for concrete |
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| 1.00pm | Building inspector arrives has a look and o.k.’s everything although at this stage we have only sleeved one pipe through the foundation He advises me to use a sulphite resistant concrete as there are bits of coal in the clay. |
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| 1.10pm | Order Concrete - six cubic metres for Monday Morning. | |
| 1.15pm | After another cup of tea we start to sleeve the remaining pipes where they pass through the concrete. Because of the bends as they pass through we use polystyrene cut and taped in order to box the pipes. Also shutter the trench and gravel around pipes. |
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| 1.20pm | Gavin phones me back to confirm the concrete for 8.30 am Monday. | |
| 2.15pm | Matt arrives on site, he has to take all sorts of jibes as he has been away on a golfing holiday but apparently didn’t play well. Probably due to the amount of shandys he drank! Not a bad day for him as he should have been on site at 8.30am. | |
| 2.30pm | After a catch up chat he gets down to work with a shovel. | |
| 2.35pm | Grab man arrives. | |
| 3.00pm | Start to clear the area where the soil had been piled . | |
| 4.00pm | Last clean up as its Friday and an early finish is in order but it doesn’t happen | |
| 4.45pm | Fences up and off to the Nags Head. Phone Tracey on the way who says she will meet us there. |