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.
Havering overview
Construction Company in Havering
Outer East London borough bordering Essex, with lower competition for general construction and roofing services. Havering falls well within the East London ground Lian Construction covers on a regular basis. For multi-trade construction and building work in Havering, that local knowledge means fewer surprises once work is on site and a team that already understands the borough's typical property stock.
Havering sits on the outer edge of London, bordering Essex, and its housing stock reflects that transitional position between the city and the home counties. As with many outer London boroughs that grew during the interwar suburban expansion, a large proportion of the housing here is likely to be semi-detached and detached properties built through the 1920s and 1930s, generally with gardens front and back and off-street parking that inner London terraces don't have. Alongside this there are pockets of postwar council-built housing and, in older town centre areas, some Victorian and Edwardian terraces typical of longer-established East London settlements. More recent decades have added newer estate-style developments, common across outer boroughs where land has been available for infill and new build schemes. This mix means the borough has a broad spread of repair and refurbishment needs: older properties with ageing roofs, pitched roofs typical of semi-detached suburban stock needing regular maintenance, and a reasonable amount of extension and loft conversion potential given the larger plot sizes common in this type of suburban housing compared with denser inner London boroughs.
Havering's position as an outer London borough bordering Essex means it doesn't attract the same density of construction and roofing firms that operate in inner London or in the more built-up parts of neighbouring boroughs. For homeowners and landlords, this generally means fewer contractors to choose from locally, which can translate into longer wait times for quotes and jobs, and less local competitive pressure on pricing than in areas with a saturated market. This tends to suit larger suburban semi-detached and detached homes typical of the area, where roofing jobs, extensions and general refurbishment work are often larger in scope than a typical inner London flat conversion. Landlords managing rental stock in the borough may find it harder to get multiple like-for-like quotes quickly, which makes it worth planning maintenance and repair work further in advance rather than waiting for problems to become urgent. The border with Essex also means some contractors serving Havering split their time across both areas, so local availability can vary depending on where in the borough a property sits.
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.
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.
How long building work typically takes
Programme length depends heavily on scope, but there are some rough patterns worth knowing before you plan around a project. A single roof repair, or reroofing a small terraced property, is often a matter of days once scaffolding is up, weather allowing, though full reroofs on larger, hipped or more complex roofs can run into a couple of weeks, and slate or heritage tile work generally takes longer than standard concrete tile because of how it's fixed, sourced and matched to what's already there. Plasterboard repairs to a ceiling or a few walls, including skimming and drying time before the surface is ready for paint, are usually a few days per room once damaged materials are stripped back to sound substrate and any water source has been fixed first, since replastering over an active leak is a waste of everyone's time and money. A full room refurbishment involving repairs, replastering, tiling and decorating tends to run two to four weeks depending on how much preparation is needed before finishes go on and whether first-fix electrics or plumbing are part of the job and need to be signed off before boarding closes the wall up. Larger refurbishments touching several rooms, or works that involve structural changes, damp treatment or full rewiring, run longer still, often several months, and are usually phased so the property stays partly usable where that's realistic for the household or tenants, with wet trades like plastering and screeding grouped together to avoid dust and mess spreading into finished rooms, and joinery, decorating and second-fix electrics scheduled in afterwards once everything else has dried out properly. Wet trades are the main constraint on speed: plaster typically needs close to a week to dry fully before decoration, and screed can take considerably longer depending on depth, mix and ventilation, so rushing this stage is the most common cause of cracking, blown paint and callbacks later on. Material lead times matter too, since bespoke tile profiles, specific lime products or non-standard rooflight sizes can add weeks if they're not ordered early, and a scaffold licence application through the local council can itself take a couple of weeks to come through before work can even start. Weather affects roofing and scaffold-dependent work more than anything else on the programme, since high wind and heavy rain both stop tile stripping and any work at height, so we build a reasonable contingency into roofing programmes rather than promising a fixed date regardless of forecast. We give a realistic programme at quote stage and flag anything, like poor weather windows for roofing or long lead items, that could reasonably push it back.
General building, refurbishment and repair servicesResidential, landlord and commercial projectsAll London coverage, borough to boroughRegular coverage of Havering and the wider East London area
Signs to look for
Do you need construction company in Havering?
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 Havering
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 Havering
How quickly can Lian start multi-trade construction and building work in Havering?
Havering is part of our regular 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 Havering?
Yes. Havering falls within the area Lian Construction serves across Greater London.
Is it hard to find a construction or roofing contractor in Havering?
Havering has fewer construction and roofing firms working locally compared with much of inner London, simply because it's an outer borough on the edge of the city. That's generally good news for pricing, but it can mean longer lead times for quotes and bookings, especially during busy periods. It's worth reaching out to a few contractors early and getting on their schedule ahead of when you actually need the work done, rather than leaving it until a leak or repair becomes urgent.
What type of construction work do you handle?
We handle refurbishment, property repairs, roof work, tiling, plasterboard repair and general building projects for residential and commercial clients.
Do you cover the whole of London, or just certain areas?
The whole of London. Lian Construction works across all 32 boroughs plus the City of London.
Do I need to manage separate trades myself, or do you coordinate everything?
We coordinate the trades ourselves as one accountable contractor, sequencing repairs, roofing, plasterboard, tiling and decorating so you have a single point of contact rather than managing subcontractors individually.
Talk to Lian Construction about Havering
Send the site address in Havering, photos if available, and the construction company work you need. We can review the scope and arrange the next step.