Builders in Belfast

What to put in your job description

• What you want built or repaired, and roughly how big it is.
• Whether you have drawings, planning permission or building regulations approval already.
• What is there now: walls, foundations, drains, trees close by.
• How a builder can get to the site, and where materials and a skip could go.
• When you want it started, and whether you'll live there during the work.

Don't put your name, phone number or address in the description: every trade who covers your area reads it. Your name, phone, email and address go only to the trades who take the job (3 at most).

Questions to ask before you hire

• Can I have a written quote that lists the stages and what each one costs?
• How will payments be staged? (Paying a large amount before work starts is a risk.)
• Who deals with building control, and with planning if it is needed?
• Who takes the waste away, and are they a registered waste carrier?
• Do you have public liability insurance?

Registers and schemes to check

There is no legal register for builders. Larger work usually needs Building Regulations approval, and some needs planning permission: ask your council or look at the Planning Portal. Work on a wall you share with a neighbour may come under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. Trade bodies include the Federation of Master Builders and TrustMark. We don't check this for you yet.

Useful numbers in Belfast

• Water: for most of Belfast, NI Water. Call them for a leak in the street or the pavement, or no water at all. Your water bill names your company.
• Power cut? Contact NIE Networks.

Your council in Belfast

Planning permission and building control are dealt with by your local council. For most of Belfast that is Belfast City Council; a postcode at the edge may be in a neighbouring council's area. Ask your council's building control, or the NI Planning Portal before work that changes the outside of your home, its structure, or a listed building or a home in a conservation area. A trade in a competent person scheme can sign off some work without building control. The Planning Portal and the Party Wall Act are for England and Wales: the rules here are your council's.

We take jobs from BT1, BT2, BT3, BT4, BT5, BT6, BT7, BT8, BT9, BT10, BT11, BT12, BT13, BT14, BT15, BT16, BT17, BT29 for Belfast. Trades choose the districts they cover.

More on hiring: Builders: what to ask and what to check.

Builders in other towns and cities

England

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland