You're about to spend £100,000, maybe £300,000, maybe more — on something attached to your home. The person you hire will be on your property for months. Their decisions will affect your building for decades. And yet most people spend less time researching their builder than they do their next television. That needs to change.
Start with Companies House
Before anything else, look the business up on Companies House. It takes two minutes and it tells you more than any website or brochure ever will.
Check when the company was incorporated. A business registered last year could be perfectly legitimate — or it could be a phoenix company, rebuilt after the previous one was dissolved owing debts. Search the director's name as well as the company name. Have they had previous dissolved companies? How many? Were they wound up voluntarily or struck off?
None of this is hidden. It's public record. A builder with a clean, long-established company has nothing to hide and won't mind you looking.
Check their online presence — properly
Go beyond the website. A polished homepage proves nothing. What you want is consistency — does the Google Business profile match the website? Are the Google reviews genuine? Look at the 3-star reviews as well as the 5s. How did the company respond to criticism?
Check social media. A builder who's actively posting project updates, real photos from real sites, and tagging real locations in Chester or North Wales or the North West is a builder who's actually building. Stock imagery and vague posts about "craftsmanship" are a red flag.
"A credible business leaves a credible trail. If you can't find one, ask yourself why."
Also check how long they've been online. An Instagram account with 40 posts from the last six months tells a different story to one with three years of documented projects.
Ask how long they've been in the industry — not just in business
Running a business and knowing how to build are not the same thing. A builder who went straight from an apprenticeship into running their own company at 23 has a different profile to one who spent fifteen years on the tools before setting up on their own.
Ask directly: how long have you been building? What did you do before you ran the business? Who did you work under, and what did you build with them?
Experience on the tools matters — not just for technical skill, but for understanding what good looks like, what problems feel like before they become expensive, and how to manage a site when things don't go to plan. That only comes from time. There are no shortcuts.
Ask what they actually specialise in
A builder who says they do everything — extensions, loft conversions, barn conversions, new builds, commercial fit-outs — often masters nothing. Each project type has its own nuances, its own subcontractor relationships, its own planning and building regs considerations.
Extension builders in Chester deal with specific ground conditions, terraced and semi-detached constraints, and planning sensitivities in conservation areas. Renovation builders in North Wales work with stone, lime mortar, and older structures that behave differently to modern brick. Barn conversions are their own discipline entirely — structural, agricultural, aesthetic.
Ask: what percentage of your work is this type of project? What's the most challenging one you've completed, and what went wrong? The answer to that second question is always more revealing than the first.
Check their insurance — and don't take their word for it
Any legitimate builder operating in Chester, the North West, or anywhere else will carry public liability insurance and employers' liability insurance as a minimum. Ask for the certificate. Not a verbal reassurance — the actual document.
Public liability covers damage to your property or injury to third parties. Employers' liability is a legal requirement for any business with employees or subcontractors on site. Without it, if someone is injured during your build, the financial exposure falls on you.
A builder who hesitates when you ask for insurance documentation is telling you something important. A builder who hands it over without blinking is telling you something better.
Meet them in person before you commit
No amount of online research replaces a face-to-face conversation. You're going to be working with this person — or their team — for months. That relationship matters as much as their technical ability.
When you meet, pay attention to how they communicate. Do they listen, or do they talk over you? Do they explain things clearly, or do they hide behind jargon? When you ask a direct question, do you get a direct answer?
Ask them to walk you through how they handle unexpected costs. Ask what happens if the project runs over. Ask how they communicate progress. The answers matter less than whether the answers make sense and whether you believe them.
You need to be able to work with this person for six months. If something feels off in a one-hour meeting, it won't get better on site.
What Built Clear looks like under scrutiny
We'd rather you check us out thoroughly than take us on faith. So here's what you'll find.
Built Clear Ltd is a registered company — look us up. We carry full public liability and employers' liability insurance and will provide certificates without hesitation. Benjamin Parry has been in the industry for years — not just running a business, but building.
Our pricing is open-book. Every invoice from every merchant and subcontractor is visible to you through Buildertrend — the project management platform that gives clients real-time visibility on costs, schedule, and site progress. Nothing is hidden because there's nothing to hide.
We specialise in extensions, renovations, and conversions across Chester, North Wales, and the wider North West. That's where our subcontractor relationships are, that's where our planning knowledge sits, and that's where we do our best work. We don't take on projects that don't fit that profile.
Do your research. Then come and talk to us.