Robert Merry, is an independent stone consultant and project manager who ran his own company for 17 years. He also acts as an expert witness. Here he presents his view of the stone industry this month.

Contracting. It never finishes where it starts.

Let me explain.

I’ve been project managing the same contract for 18 months. The original start in October 2012 was accompanied by a programme that had the stone contract complete by April 2013.

I remember sweating when we signed the contract, thinking this was going to be tough. Three storeys above ground, with eight bathrooms – one in

book-matched Onyx – 240m2 of limestone in the basement corridors, plus kitchens, servants bathrooms, laundry rooms etc, etc. There were also 400m2 of sub-basement swimming pool walls and floors, with 110m2 of hand-made mosaics, vanity tops, worktops and carved basins. All in 7 months (less Christmas). And nothing was built for us to measure!

I wrote the program with a histogram. We predicted up to 14 fixers and labourers on site in the most intense periods. Where we were going to find them I hadn’t a clue.

Working from the third floor down, we programmed to start on 10 December 2012. We actually started at the end of January 2013, stopped after two weeks and started again on the third floor in March. The builder wasn’t ready, but still seemed to think it was our fault when they took the doors off and lowered the door frames.

This went on for the rest of the contract. Stop start. “Lay the basement slabs first… Now!”

I remember we all stood looking at the sub-basement swimming pool dig in October 2012 and comforted ourselves with the thought that there was no way they’d be ready for the stone in time. And they weren’t.

Endless trips to Italy to select stone, view manufacture, discuss drawings and agree details. Even though our slabs matched samples provided by the designer, the slabs were never quite right. The samples were too small and the designer too particular. The onyx selection was the most challenging, finally purchasing four blocks – the forth didn’t quite match the rest was for a separate WC area. We had to settle on the difference. And so it went on.

The supplier of the 400m2 plus of pool slabs showed samples. They were approved. We paid a large deposit. They returned photos of blocks with our vesting certificate labels in favour of the client taped to the blocks and we were paid.

When production was due to start the supplier said he didn’t have these blocks anymore and we would have to find new ones.

What?!?

Eventually we found other blocks in another part of Italy and then went into protracted negotiations with the first supplier to get our money back. This was the first week in August last year and we had just surveyed the pool.

The contractor came with me to Italy. I had to tell him about the problems with the supply chain. He was upset, naturally. I always try to be honest where I can. I think evasion and half-truths just end up finding their way back to bite you on the bum and, anyway, I sleep better at night… but not that much better.

Throughout all this I’m trying to keep the team together and enthusiastic and motivated, fending off the MD’s demands for explanations of the delay and the costs and smoozing the Quantity Surveyor to persuade him we are owed vast sums for protracted management costs.

So here I stand on the threshold of completion and our site manager calls me to say they need a last minute piece of stone from Italy because…

The contractor hands over the week after Easter. That’s the four-day week after Easter, I remember, breaking out into a cold sweat… again.

And I think to myself it never rains but it pours… you only live once… do or die… Dunkirk… El Alamein…. Zulu Dawn… Rorke’s Drift… and other all action hero films. Then I stop and laugh out loud. Eighteen months. A year late. A 25% increase in the value of the contract. It never ends. And it certainly never finishes where it starts.

Robert Merry, MCIOB, ran his own stone company for 17 years and is now an independent Stone Consultant and Project Manager. He is also an expert witness in disputes regarding stone and stone contracts. Tel: 0207 502 6353 / 07771 997621