One crew, one number, thirteen years

CraftBuilt started with one van, two men and a rewire in Tooting. Thirteen years on it is nine trades working out of a yard in Wandsworth — and the same phone number, answered by the same foreman.

Built one trade at a time

Danny Kerrigan was a site carpenter for eleven years before he had a van of his own. The first CraftBuilt job was a rewire and a redecoration in Tooting, priced on the back of a job sheet, and it took three weeks instead of two because the joists were worse than anybody had said.

That job set the rule the firm still runs on: open it up, look properly, then put a number in writing and stand by it. Everything since has been added because a customer asked for it — an electrician because homeowners were waiting six weeks for one, a plasterer because nobody would come back to make good, drawings in-house because architects' fees were killing extensions before they started.

There is no sales team. The foreman who answers the phone is the one who surveys the job and the one you ring if something fails two winters later. That is the whole business model, and it is the reason we turn work down when the diary is full instead of putting strangers in your house.

Named on your job sheet before day one

Nine of us, all on the payroll. You get the names before we start, and the same faces every morning until the paperwork is handed over.