Variations · Case study
The anatomy of a variation
It starts with four words on a Tuesday morning — 'while we're at it' — and ends, on the projects that go wrong, as £30,000 of work nobody agreed a price for.
September 2026 · 8 min read
The Clinic Magazine
Reading for the decisions you are about to make.
Longer, plainer writing on the four things that decide how a building project ends — the decisions, the quotes, the contract and the changes made on site. Written for homeowners, using real figures from real projects.
Decisions
The choices that set everything after them
2 articles
Quotes
Reading a price for what it actually says
1 article
Contracts
The paperwork that decides who carries the risk
2 articles
Variations
How a fixed price stops being fixed
1 article
In this issue
Contracts
The contract conversation nobody wants to have
Homeowners avoid contracts because they feel like distrust. In practice a contract is the opposite: it is the document that lets two people who like each other survive a bad month.
September 2026 · 10 min read
Quotes
Three quotes, three different projects
When builders' prices are far apart, the usual explanation is not greed or generosity. It is that each one has priced a different job — and only one of them has priced yours.
August 2026 · 8 min read
Decisions
The decision you make before you know you are making it
Most budgets are not lost on site. They are lost in a kitchen conversation months earlier, when nobody writes down what the project is actually for.
August 2026 · 9 min read
Decisions
What a contingency is actually for
It is not a discount fund, and it is not spare money for a better kitchen. It is the only part of your budget that buys you the right to say no.
July 2026 · 7 min read
Contracts
The last ten per cent
Snagging is where good projects turn sour, because it is the only stage where both sides want opposite things at the same moment.
June 2026 · 8 min read