Construction firms across the globe are feeling the pinch as we experience a shortage and price hike of key materials from timber to roof tiles. According to some sources, the shortage is expected to continue into the summer this year.

Why is there a shortage of construction materials?

This is a two-way problem, caused mainly by the Covid-19 pandemic. With lockdowns in force, homeowners were faced with properties that could do with a facelift, refurbishment or renovation and were ‘gifted’ with the time to think about and plan the works. At the same time, production of materials was forced to slow, with materials diverted to essential projects for the most part.

Meanwhile, business owners discovered their offices were closed for many months and took the opportunity to create home-office spaces or extend their properties to cater for running their business from home.

Refurb saw a lot of this type of work during 2020, alongside renovation and refurbishment of commercial and educational buildings that were left empty and so presented the perfect opportunity for improvements to be made.

Then, Covid aside, there was the small matter of the Suez Canal blockage. Believe it or not, that incident is responsible for ongoing procurement troubles, particularly in the United States and Western Europe. Over 350 ships were affected by the blockage, which contained components for manufacturing and critical construction materials.

This puts our sector in a very difficult position as demand for work continues to increase. So, how can we protect our customers and manage expectations of project deadlines?

Excellent relationships with suppliers

Open and honest communications with our suppliers is key at this time. Having excellent relationships with our network of materials suppliers means we can get accurate lead times for materials.

Honest quotes delivered with candour

Keeping up to date with sector news allows us to stay informed of how the procurement situation is changing, or expected to. This way we can adjust our project timings and pricing with the most accurate information.

However, with the best will in the world, there are occasionally times when the materials we need are just not available or have suddenly gone up in price. At these times we’ve found the best course of action is to deliver the news to our customers as quickly as possible, keeping them informed of our efforts to locate the materials and advise them of any price changes we encounter that would affect our initial quote.

This puts the control in the hands of our customer, so they don’t get any nasty surprises part way through a project.

Never over-promise so we never under-deliver

We only take on construction projects we know we can manage with the utmost professionalism. Our reputation depends on happy customers – that’s you!

Despite the shortage of construction materials we are still taking requests for commercial building and electrical refurb projects. The show must go on as they say and so must your business. So if you’re looking for a realistic quote and proposal of works, call us on 01993 685998 or email admin@refurb-pr.co.uk.