When a facility is handed over late, the search for reasons usually focuses on the people who were on site. In reality most of the lost weeks are created earlier — in documents, in the design and in procurement. The construction works themselves normally take about as long as planned; what moves the date is everything running in parallel.
The biggest risk is getting onto the site, not the building itself
Between contract signature and the first working day sit approvals, permits, handover of the site and temporary connections. This stage is rarely broken down in the schedule — it appears as a single line, and it is exactly the line that stretches.
What to ask a contractor: not «how long will the works take», but «when will you physically be on site, and what do you need from us for that». The second half of the question matters more — the wait is often for the client's own documents.
Design quality only becomes visible on site
A flawed design does not stop work immediately. It stops it halfway, when the discrepancy can no longer be worked around: junctions that do not match actual dimensions, services that clash, specifications listing discontinued items.
Each such discovery costs not hours but a cycle: stop, query to the designer, revision, approval, return to site. Asking who produced the design and when is therefore not a formality.
Refurbishment is always less predictable than new build
On a greenfield site there are few unknowns. Inside an operating building the opposite is true: the real condition of structures, concealed services, and dimensions that do not match drawings issued thirty years ago.
For refurbishment a condition survey before works is insurance, not an expense: it costs a fraction of the budget and saves weeks. A refurbishment schedule with no survey stage is a reason for questions, not for optimism.
The second factor is whether the facility keeps operating during the works. A building that cannot be closed means working in sections, in access windows, sometimes at night. That is a different schedule, and it has to be planned from the start.
Equipment with long lead times
The building works can run to plan while the facility waits for a single item: a lift, a platform, a transformer, an air handling unit, specialised medical equipment. Manufacturing and delivery times for these do not compress.
🔴 The rule is simple: long-lead items are ordered at the start, not when the works reach them. This is the main reason it pays to keep supply and construction with one contractor — those dates are visible from day one rather than from the middle of the project.
Season and weather
Some works have temperature limits: wet processes, roofing, façades, landscaping. This does not mean building stops in winter — it means the sequence must reflect when you start. The same scope beginning in March and in October produces different schedules.
Changes during the works
The most common cause of slippage that nobody likes to name: the client changes something. That is normal — not everything is visible on paper. But every change has a cost in time, and an honest contractor states it immediately instead of quietly «absorbing» it and then missing the date.
What to include in the brief
- Whether a design exists, who produced it and whether it passed expert review.
- New build or refurbishment; if refurbishment — whether a condition survey exists.
- Whether the facility operates during the works, and what access windows are available.
- Whether equipment is in our scope — and which items (this is where long lead times hide).
- The date that genuinely matters: commissioning, heating season, academic year.
- Who approves decisions on the client side — and how quickly.
That last point affects the timeline as much as the weather. A project where decisions are made in a day and a project where the same question takes two weeks are different schedules for identical scope.
We carry out construction and installation works on a full cycle — from design and approvals to finishing and technical fit-out, including under state contracts. From practice: refurbishment of the sports building at the Patrol Police Academy and construction of educational facilities. If you have a site and a date, describe them and we will tell you what is realistically achievable — and what is not.