Today I was talking to a painting Client of ours.  He was 'tearing his hair out' working for a large national housing developer who was snagging his painting works to walls by shining a light directly onto the walls while standing immediately next to them.

This was picking up all the imperfections in the plasterwork (Did I say imperfections?  I meant to say, rubbish plasterwork!!).

The housing developer was trying to say that the painter had not prepared the su

I know I regularly post articles relating to the total inadequacy of New Rules of Measurement (NRM2), Section 29, but here's another example of how NRM2 just doesn't work.

Take a look at the photo.
It shows door frames on a job I was doing a re-measure on.

As you can see, we have very wide architraves (irregular surfaces), not exceeding 300mm girth, but with a plain, girth exceeding 300mm door frame lining.
The overall girth was 870mm, (archs were 282m

Are you maximizing your chances of securing a tender?

There are many reasons why tenders are won and lost:  One of these is what you do with specifications when pricing.

When ‘rating up’, there are a couple of things that you can do, to make your rates more competitive without having to ‘skip’ coats:


1.    New Woodwork:  The specification always asks for primer, but it is important that when ‘rating