Working across Hertfordshire

Builder in Hertfordshire

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Bes Cuni: Registered Building Inspector (Class 2), MCIOB, AssocRICS

Hertfordshire starts a couple of miles from where we are based. Luton sits right on the county boundary, and the LU2 postcode runs out to Lilley and Cockernhoe, which are in North Hertfordshire rather than in Bedfordshire. Harpenden, which is on our list of covered areas, is in St Albans City and District. For BXC, Hertfordshire is not a distant market. It is the other side of the road.

One thing we are not going to do is turn that into ten town pages. You will find builders' websites with a page for St Albans, a page for Watford, a page for Hemel Hempstead and a page for Hitchin, and if you read two of them you will notice they are the same page with the town swapped over. We have one Hertfordshire page because we have one honest thing to say about Hertfordshire, and we would rather say it properly than say it ten times badly. If you want to know whether we cover your town, ring and ask, and you will get a yes or a no rather than a page.

And the same rule as everywhere else on this site: we have not yet photographed a Hertfordshire job. The gallery further down this page shows examples of our work photographed in and around Luton and on one job in Manchester, and every caption says which. None of those photographs is a Hertfordshire job. When there is a Hertfordshire job with photographs of it, they go on this page, labelled as Hertfordshire.

We also cover nearby

  • St Albans
  • Harpenden
  • Watford
  • Hemel Hempstead
  • Hitchin
  • Stevenage
  • Welwyn Garden City
  • Hertford
  • Berkhamsted
  • Ware
  • Letchworth
  • Radlett
  • Potters Bar
  • Bishop's Stortford

What we do here

Everything below we do across the county. Extensions and loft conversions are the bulk of it, for the same reason they are in Luton: in a county of family houses on plots people do not want to leave, those are the two ways of getting another room without moving.

  • House extensionsSingle storey, double storey and wrap-around, with the structural design done properly.
  • Loft conversionsDormer, hip-to-gable and rooflight, with the fire and staircase work included.
  • RoofingSlate and tile re-roofs, flat roofs, lead work and chimney repairs.
  • BrickworkNew walls, structural openings, repointing and brick matching.
  • BricklayerSub-contract bricklaying for builders, self-builders and architects.
  • Home renovationsWhole house refurbishments run by one contractor.
  • Fire and flood refurbishmentInsurance reinstatement, working with your loss adjuster.

Questions we get asked

Which council decides my extension in Hertfordshire?
Your district or borough council, not the county council. Hertfordshire has ten of them: Broxbourne, Dacorum, East Hertfordshire, Hertsmere, North Hertfordshire, St Albans, Stevenage, Three Rivers, Watford and Welwyn Hatfield. Each one is its own local planning authority with its own local plan, its own conservation areas and its own validation list. Hertfordshire County Council handles highways, minerals and waste, schools and social care, and has nothing to do with your extension.

Why is there no St Albans page or Watford page on this website?
Because we have not evidenced a job in either, and a town page with no real job behind it is a doorway page: the same words with the town swapped, written for a search engine rather than for you. Google's own spam policies say so and we happen to agree with them. When there is a real job in a Hertfordshire town, with photographs and a date, that town gets a page and it will be worth reading.

My house is in the Green Belt. Can I still extend it?
Often, within limits, and the limit is the point. The National Planning Policy Framework was rewritten in August 2026 and its Green Belt policy now turns on whether an extension or alteration would result in a disproportionate increase in size compared with the original building. Original has a hard definition: the building as it stood on 1 July 1948, or as first built if it went up after that. So a previous owner's extension counts against you. Note also that the old paragraph numbers everyone quotes online are gone, so treat any Green Belt advice citing an NPPF paragraph number as out of date. How the test is applied still varies by district, which is why we look at the original footprint and what has already been added before you spend money on drawings, and why we will not tell you it is fine when it is not.

Does being in the Green Belt mean I have no permitted development rights?
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding we hear in this county. Green Belt is not on the Order's list of designated land, so unlike a conservation area or a National Landscape it does not by itself remove householder permitted development. What can remove it is an Article 4 direction, a planning condition on the original estate, or your house also sitting in a conservation area or being listed. In St Albans, for instance, there are long-standing householder directions over Verulam and Fishpool Street, Sopwell Lane and Albert Street, Childwick Green and Cunningham Avenue. It is an address-by-address question and it is free to check.

What about chalk mines? I have heard about the St Albans sinkhole.
It is a real thing and it is worth taking seriously without panicking. In October 2015 a large hole opened in Fontmell Close in St Albans and the formal investigation put the cause at an old bellpit-style chalk mine working roughly forty metres below the highway. Welwyn Hatfield takes it seriously enough to publish a chalk mine hazard map and to require a geotechnical report with the application in high risk areas. The council's own position is the sensible one: chalk mines do not stop development, they usually mean a technical solution. What it argues for is trial holes and a proper look at the ground before anything structural is priced, rather than an assumption.

Have you worked in Hertfordshire?
Luton sits on the county boundary and its own LU2 postcode reaches into North Hertfordshire, so the county is genuinely part of our patch rather than a market we are reaching for. What we do not have yet is a Hertfordshire job we have photographed, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The photographs on this page are from the Luton area and Manchester, and each caption says which.

Do you do the building control on your own work?
No, and this is worth being blunt about because it is the obvious thing to assume. Bes is a Registered Building Inspector at Class 2, registered with the Building Safety Regulator, which has been a legal requirement for anyone doing building control work in England since 6 April 2024. The register is public and you can look him up. What that does not allow is building control on his own company's work. An inspector is not permitted to act where his company has a professional or financial interest, which includes anything BXC designed or built. Your building control comes from the council or from a building control approver you appoint, exactly as it would with any other builder. The value to you is the other way round: the man running your job has been assessed on the Building Regulations from the inspector's side of the table, so the details that normally get picked up at inspection tend to be right first time.

Is the ground different from Luton?
In the north and west of the county, not much. It is chalk, the same as under Luton, often capped with clay-with-flints, which usually means you are not digging to the depths a clay area needs. Go south towards the London fringe, into Watford, Three Rivers, Hertsmere and Broxbourne, and London Clay takes over. Approved Document A puts the minimum foundation depth in shrinkable clay at 0.75 metres on low shrinkage, 0.9 on medium and 1.0 on high, before you allow for trees, against 0.45 metres for frost alone. That is a survey question rather than a website question, and it is one of the things we look at before we price anything structural.

Are Hertfordshire houses old?
Much less than people assume, and it changes how a job is priced. The Valuation Office figures for March 2025 put 23.7 per cent of Hertfordshire's stock as built before 1940, against 34.9 per cent for England, while 24.9 per cent went up between 1945 and 1964 against 16.1 per cent nationally. That is the New Town effect: Stevenage was designated Britain's first New Town in 1946 and is only 3.0 per cent pre-1940, with 38.4 per cent built in that post-war window. Watford is the opposite at 44.6 per cent pre-1940. A 1950s Stevenage house and a Victorian Watford terrace are two completely different jobs, and the survey is different for each.

How far across the county will you travel?
All of it, for the right job, and we will tell you honestly when you would be better off with someone closer. The practical line is that a small repair in Bishop's Stortford is not a job for a contractor coming from Luton, and a full extension in Harpenden or St Albans very much is.

Get a free quote

Tell us the district and the postcode with your first message. It decides the planning route, the Green Belt position and often the foundation depth, so it saves us both a conversation.

Get a free quote Call 07448 465880

Examples of our work from Luton and Manchester.

None of these is a Hertfordshire job. They were photographed in the Luton area and on one job in Manchester, and each caption says which.

  • Completed orangery-style extension with a glazed roof lantern and new stone steps to a porcelain patio (Manchester)
    Completed orangery-style extension with a glazed roof lantern and new stone steps to a porcelain patio (Manchester)
  • Box dormer loft conversion above a new single-storey rear extension with a finished flat roof (Luton area)
    Box dormer loft conversion above a new single-storey rear extension with a finished flat roof (Luton area)
  • Completed brick facade of the four-storey Barnfield College building in Luton
    Completed brick facade of the four-storey Barnfield College building in Luton
  • Finished kitchen island with bar stools under a glazed roof lantern (Manchester)
    Finished kitchen island with bar stools under a glazed roof lantern (Manchester)
  • Loft en-suite tiled floor to ceiling with a herringbone tiled floor (Luton area)
    Loft en-suite tiled floor to ceiling with a herringbone tiled floor (Luton area)
  • Newly slated roof with a run of dormer windows (Luton area)
    Newly slated roof with a run of dormer windows (Luton area)
  • Completed living space in a rear extension with a coffered ceiling and glazed roof lantern (Luton area)
    Completed living space in a rear extension with a coffered ceiling and glazed roof lantern (Luton area)
  • Completed single-storey rear extension with a new porcelain patio running out from it (Luton area)
    Completed single-storey rear extension with a new porcelain patio running out from it (Luton area)
  • Structural steel beams installed across a newly formed opening during an extension build (Luton area)
    Structural steel beams installed across a newly formed opening during an extension build (Luton area)
  • Finished room with a vaulted ceiling, wood burning stove and a herringbone parquet floor (Luton area)
    Finished room with a vaulted ceiling, wood burning stove and a herringbone parquet floor (Luton area)
  • Completed family bathroom with a panelled bath, walk-in shower and brass towel rail (Luton area)
    Completed family bathroom with a panelled bath, walk-in shower and brass towel rail (Luton area)
  • Completed grey gloss kitchen with a peninsula sink unit and built-in ovens (Luton area)
    Completed grey gloss kitchen with a peninsula sink unit and built-in ovens (Luton area)
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