Refurbishment, repair, roofing, tiling, plasterboard and general building work all sit under one roof at Lian Construction, a London construction company serving homes, landlords and commercial clients in every borough.
Greenwich overview
Construction Company in Greenwich
A large stock of Victorian and Edwardian houses with essentially no dedicated roofing competitor coverage. Greenwich falls well within the South East London ground Lian Construction covers on a regular basis. For multi-trade construction and building work in Greenwich, that local knowledge means fewer surprises once work is on site and a team that already understands the borough's typical property stock.
Greenwich has a large stock of Victorian and Edwardian houses, much of it terraced or semi-detached, built in the decades either side of 1900 as London's suburbs expanded along the riverside and rail lines. As with similar housing across inner and near-inner London boroughs, roofs on these properties are typically slate or clay tile, often with parapet walls, valley gutters, and multiple original chimney stacks. Many houses will have had partial re-roofing, loft conversions, or rear extensions at some point over the past century, which means roof coverings and detailing are frequently mixed ages even on a single property. Bay windows with their own small roofs, and shared or party-wall guttering between terraced neighbours, are common features that need particular care during repair work. Given the age of this housing stock, issues such as slipped or missing tiles, ageing lead flashing around chimneys, and worn valley gutters are the kind of thing homeowners in Greenwich are likely to encounter periodically, rather than one-off problems. Property condition varies a good deal street by street depending on maintenance history, so what one house needs can differ significantly from its neighbour.
With a large stock of Victorian and Edwardian houses and essentially no dedicated roofing competitor coverage in the area, homeowners and landlords in Greenwich are often left choosing between general builders who treat roofing as a sideline, or firms based further afield who may not prioritise smaller local jobs. This gap tends to show up most clearly with urgent repairs, where a slipped tile or a leak after a storm needs someone who can attend quickly rather than fit the job in around larger contracts elsewhere. It also affects planning and quoting for larger work such as full re-roofs or chimney repairs, where a lack of specialist local knowledge can mean longer lead times or less accurate initial assessments. For landlords managing older rental stock, this matters because roof issues left unresolved tend to escalate into damp and interior damage, which is more disruptive and costly to fix than catching problems early. Homeowners undertaking wider refurbishment work, such as loft conversions or extensions, may also find it harder to coordinate roofing specifically as part of a bigger project if there isn't a contractor locally who covers that trade in depth. In practice, this means demand for reliable, responsive roofing and refurbishment work in Greenwich likely outstrips the readily available supply.
Given the concentration of Victorian and Edwardian houses in Greenwich, conservation area and, in some cases, listed building considerations are worth checking before starting roofing or exterior refurbishment work. As in many outer and inner London boroughs with older housing stock, parts of Greenwich may fall within conservation areas, where changes visible from the street, such as replacing roof coverings with a different material, altering rooflines, or adding roof windows to a front elevation, can require planning permission even where similar work elsewhere would be permitted development. Chimney stacks and original architectural detailing are often specifically protected in these areas. It's worth checking with the local planning department or a surveyor early on, since retrospective permission is harder to secure than getting it sorted before work starts. This doesn't apply to every property, and plenty of routine repairs and like-for-like replacements fall outside these controls, but it's a sensible thing to verify given the age of the housing stock.
Typical construction company day rates and project bands
Item
Typical range
Labourer
£120–£180/day
Skilled trade
£220–£320/day
Small multi-trade project
£12,000–£35,000
General London market guidance, not a fixed quote — actual pricing depends on a site survey. Full breakdown: cost guide.
What affects the cost of construction work in London
Pricing on any building project comes down to a handful of practical factors, and London adds its own layer on top of the basics. Access is usually the biggest one: a mid-terrace Victorian house with no side return means materials go in through the front door and waste comes out the same way, which slows everything down compared with a detached property with driveway access. Scaffolding and skip permits add cost on narrow residential streets, where a council permit is often needed just to stand a skip or a scaffold tower on the public highway, and resident parking restrictions can limit when deliveries and skip swaps happen. The condition of what's already there matters too: solid brick walls with old lime plaster often need more preparation and different materials than a stud wall in a 1990s build, and a roof that's had years of patch repairs can hide problems, rotten battens, perished felt, corroded flashings, that only show once the tiles come off. Party wall matters, listed building or conservation area status, and whether services need upgrading, old rewireable fuse boards, lead water pipes, insufficient loft insulation, all feed into the final figure. Material choice affects cost as much as labour: matching reclaimed London stock brick, sourcing a specific clay tile profile, or specifying a breathable lime render instead of standard cement render all carry different price points, and none of that is visible from the street until a survey opens things up. Waste disposal is its own line item too, since a skip on a residential road is priced differently from a grab lorry on a site with vehicular access, and mixed construction waste containing plasterboard or asbestos-suspect material has to be segregated and disposed of through a licensed carrier rather than a standard skip. Structural work, like removing a chimney breast or forming an opening for a knock-through, adds engineering and steelwork costs on top of the building work itself, and needs a structural calculation before anyone touches a supporting wall, along with making good the ceiling and floor either side once the steel is in and padstones are built up. Basement and lower-ground floor rooms often carry an extra cost too, since a below-ground damp issue usually needs a different specification, a tanking system or a French drain, rather than a straightforward decorating fix. On listed buildings, sourcing matching materials, like a specific handmade brick, a natural slate to match the existing roof, or a traditional lime mortar mix, can itself take longer and add more to the final cost than the labour needed to install them once they arrive on site. We survey before we quote, and the written quote sets out labour, materials and any provisional sums for items we genuinely can't confirm until walls, floors or roofs are opened up.
Materials and methods suited to London's housing stock
London's building stock isn't uniform, and using the wrong method on the wrong wall causes more problems than it solves. On Victorian and Edwardian solid wall terraces, we generally avoid sealing walls with gypsum plaster or cement-based renders, since solid brick needs to let moisture move through it rather than trap it; lime-based plasters and breathable finishes are usually the better fix where damp or historic movement is involved, particularly on ground floor rooms without a damp proof course or where a previous owner has already made things worse with a sealed modern render. On later stud partitions and ex-council concrete-frame flats, plasterboard on dot-and-dab adhesive or fixed to timber battens is standard, along with skim coats or taped-and-jointed finishes depending on what's being covered and whether the wall needs to stay accessible for services or sound insulation between flats, which matters more in a converted terrace or purpose-built block with shared floors and party floors between different owners. Where an existing lath and plaster ceiling is sound, we'll often repair and skim it rather than strip it out unnecessarily, since removing a good ceiling to replace it with plasterboard adds cost and mess without improving anything. For roofing, we work with concrete and clay tiles, natural slate on older or heritage properties, and felt, GRP or single-ply membranes on flat roofs and extensions, along with breather membranes and treated battens under the tile line to manage ventilation and prevent trapped moisture in the roof void, which is a common cause of premature timber decay in older lofts that were never designed with modern insulation levels in mind. Matching materials to what's already on the building is usually more sensible than a full replacement where a like-for-like repair will do the job and keep the roofline consistent with neighbouring properties, particularly on a terrace where mismatched tiles are obvious from the street and can affect a future sale or a mortgage valuation. Tiling follows proper preparation: uneven or bouncy floors get boarded, levelled or screeded before tiles go down, tanking membrane or slurry is used in wet areas like shower enclosures and behind baths, and adhesive, grout and movement joints are chosen for the substrate and any underfloor heating rather than whatever happens to be cheapest on the day. None of this is exotic. It's standard trade practice, applied correctly, in the right order, on the right substrate, which is where most of the actual value in a job lies rather than in anything unusual or a particular brand name printed on the bag.
General building, refurbishment and repair servicesResidential, landlord and commercial projectsAll London coverage, borough to boroughRegular coverage of Greenwich and the wider South East London area
Signs to look for
Do you need construction company in Greenwich?
A rental property needs refurbishing between tenancies and the work spans several trades: repairs, plastering, tiling, roofing and decorating, all within a tight turnaround.
You're planning a loft conversion or rear extension and need repairs, roofing and finishing trades coordinated as one project rather than several separate contractors.
Musty smells, damp patches or flaking paint on solid brick walls suggest moisture is trapped behind an unsuitable modern cement-based finish applied years ago.
A commercial unit needs fitting out, repairing or bringing up to a lettable standard and you want one contractor managing the whole sequence from start to finish.
How the work is handled in Greenwich
Step 1Discuss the project and constraints
Step 2Survey the site
Step 3Prepare a clear scope
Step 4Deliver the work with one point of contact
Questions
Construction Company questions in Greenwich
How quickly can Lian start multi-trade construction and building work in Greenwich?
Greenwich is part of our regular South East London coverage, so once we've surveyed the property we can usually confirm a start date quickly. Send the address and scope and we'll arrange the next step.
Do you cover all of Greenwich?
Yes. Greenwich falls within the area Lian Construction serves across Greater London.
Do I need planning permission to replace my roof in Greenwich?
It depends on the property and whether it sits in a conservation area, and on what you're changing. Straightforward like-for-like re-roofing is often permitted development, but altering the roofline, changing materials, or adding rooflights on a front-facing slope can require permission in conservation areas, which cover parts of Greenwich. We'd always recommend checking with the council or a surveyor before committing to work, since it's much easier to sort out beforehand than after the fact.
Can you carry out work while tenants or family are still living in the property?
In many cases, yes, particularly for repairs, roofing or work confined to one or two rooms, and we'll sequence the job to keep disruption manageable and keep at least one working bathroom and kitchen available where that's realistic given the scope. For larger refurbishments involving several rooms, replastering, or works that generate a lot of dust, noise and dust sheeting through shared hallways, we'd usually recommend the property is empty, at least for the messier phases like stripping out and first-fix work. We'll talk through what's practical for your household or tenancy, room by room if needed, before agreeing a programme, rather than assuming one approach fits every job, every family or every tenancy, and we'll give reasonable notice of noisy or disruptive days so people can plan around them where possible.
Do you provide scaffolding, skips and site management, or do I need to organise that separately?
We arrange scaffolding, skip hire and any necessary highway or scaffold permits as part of the project rather than leaving you to organise them, and this is included in the written quote so there are no separate arrangements for you to chase up yourself. On residential streets where a skip permit or scaffold licence is needed from the local council, we handle that application and factor in the typical processing time when we build the programme, since these can take longer to come through than the work itself in some boroughs. If a project needs specific access equipment, such as a tower scaffold for a rear extension roof or longer-term hoarding for a larger refurbishment, we price that in upfront rather than treating it as a surprise extra once work has already started on site.
How do I know if my builder is overcharging me?
A few checks help here. Get more than one quote, but check each one is pricing the same scope in the same detail, since a lower headline figure sometimes just means a shorter list of what's included rather than a genuinely cheaper job. A quote that comes in 40 to 60% below everyone else is rarely a real saving, it's more often a way to win the job before the price creeps up through extras once you're committed. We provide a written quote that breaks labour, materials and provisional sums into separate lines, and agree any variations before they happen rather than adding them to the final invoice unannounced, so there's a clear paper trail to compare against.
Talk to Lian Construction about Greenwich
Send the site address in Greenwich, photos if available, and the construction company work you need. We can review the scope and arrange the next step.