News
National Home Improvement Show 2 - 4 October 2009
At the National Home Improvement Show, one of the UK’s biggest events for people looking to add space and value to their home, The London Basement Company showcased it’s work alongside Clarke:Desai Architects on Stand 418.
The London Basement Company, acknowledged as the leader and innovator within the basement excavation and construction industry, share a passion with TV presenter and architect George Clarke, one of the directors of Clarke:Desai, for creating exciting new living and leisure space, working within an existing property. George was available on the stand during the show, in between presenting his seminars at the Real Homes Live Theatre.
The show was a major success, coming at a time when many people, particularly within London, prefer to extend and improve there existing home rather than move and we were delighted at the extremely positive response.
London Basement to present at ASUC Seminar
We are pleased to announce that our Design Director, Mike Wiseman will be presenting at this years ASUCplus Basement Construction and Design Seminar. He will examine finishes and uses for basements in line with fit out standards and technical considerations.
Also presenting at the seminar will be George Clarke (Channel 4’s Home Improvement Show), giving an architect’s view on basement concepts and design, looking at design issues and creative possibilities. He will also examine how creating additional basement space can help with space planning throughout a property. Naturally George will be looking at this partly from a personal standpoint as well, as London Basement are about to start work on George’s own basement construction.
On Site Open Day
The London Basement Company recently held an "open day" at one of our sites in N.W. London, where architects, interior designers and clients, were invited along to enjoy some refreshments and have the opportunity to discuss their proposed projects with our experts on site, covering all aspects of a basement construction from the more technical through to design and finishes. There was also the rare opportunity of viewing a basement construction in progress at close hand, which all agreed was quite an experience and created a better understanding of what is involved.
The feedback has been extremely positive, with everybody telling us that they found it to be an extremely useful and informative event. Therefore, we will be putting plans in place to hold another event in the early Autumn.
George Clarke
We are very pleased to announce that we are soon to commence a basement construction for George Clarke, the presenter of the Home Show on Channel 4 on Thursday evenings at 8.00pm. If you would like to visit his web site, the address is www.georgeclarke.co.uk and under the heading My Tips, you will see an article about Basement Conversions and this explains better than anything why he chose The London Basement Company.
Home investment
With the property market at a low ebb we have found that more and more people have opted to invest in their own properties rather than go the expense of moving, particularly when in most cases it is the need for more space that is the deciding factor.
To illustrate the level of interest in basement construction since the start of the ‘credit crunch’, there has been a 20% increase in the first quarter of 2009, compared to the first quarter of 2008.
The creation of a basement floor level provides genuine living space, with the possibility of constructing a basement below the entire property and even beyond, i.e. under the garden and we can even dig down more than one level, to create all the additional living space required.
Apart from the savings in moving costs, stamp duty and the cost of the larger property, you get to stay in the home that you have probably already invested your time, love and money, perhaps in an area where you have children settled in school.
Health & Safety
We are pleased to welcome to the team our new Health & Safety Manager, Barry Hart, who comes to us with a wealth of experience from the construction industry, to help us to maintain and if possible, improve upon our excellent reputation in respect of all health and safety training and auditing.
Green Issues
Transport
As our fleet of company cars and vans have grown, The London Basement Company are committed to reducing our own co² footprint on the environment by purchasing only hybrid vehicles when procuring any new company cars or vans. We have replaced almost 50% of our fleet to date, with the long term plan to make it 100%, believing that with a 25% reduction on greenhouse gas emission with hybrid cars, we can at least do our small part to help the environment.
Recycling
We are committed to recycling all waste and materials wherever possible, and to that end we have employed the use of recycling within our own yard, where any recyclable materials removed from site are separated at our yard into wood, metals and plastics, etc., and disposed of by a recycling agency that we employ.
To that end we have also introduced the use of green and red bins within our offices, so that we can ensure that all paper is recycled.
Purchasing Power
During 2008 The London Basement Company formed a Buying Division, to make full use of our purchasing power within the construction industry, which has shown the benefits very clearly and we are pleased to say that these benefits are being passed on to our clients at the costing stage.