Simply Extend - House Extensions London -

Priya Parmar

We engaged with Simply for the construction of a rear extension in our home. The build was to create an open plan kitchen, living and dining area and the Simply team were extremely helpful and understood the brief from the very beginning.
We initially met with the surveyor who put together a very detailed specification highlighting all parts of the build. This made it a very smooth process when handed over to the contractors.

Safdar Ali

Fantastic construction of a large singe storey rear extension, major house renovation and central heating work. The simply team provided 110% customer care and aftersales help. They were a single point of contact for my project needs, all the way through planning permission, architect's designs, construction and final touches. I was kept informed of my project's progress and requirements all the way through. Their online dashboard monitoring was fully transparent and real-time. Really pleased with the final outcome and attention to detail. Reffered them to other family and friends also. Thanks Simply.

Jared

We used Simply for 2 projects - a loft conversion and a small side return extension. We were initially really impressed - the company felt premium vs other options we’d got quotes from and so we decided to go with them - mainly because of good reviews. When it came to the actual build however, we were disappointed.

The first team we had were ok (in hindsight). They clearly had not looked at our plans before beginning work as they built things wrong on multiple occasions and had to be corrected/micromanaged in the end in order to get the desired result. Work was to a poor standard until we asked for it to be rectified. Specifics we’d asked and paid for (a pine staircase rather than MDF) were just ignored (we were reimbursed the excess cost).

The work took 6 weeks longer than the initial 10-12 week estimate, when we ended up asking the builders to finish up early and opted to take on the remaining work ourselves.

When it came to the second project (extension) we figured ‘better the devil you know’, and instructed simply again - this time specifying that we’d like a different build team. This was a mistake.

This second build team were terrible. They were disrespectful to our home, dragging old appliances across the floor, damaging floorboards, doorframes and doors in the process. They turned up unequipped for the job, rifling through our belongings without asking, to then use our tools. Most importantly, they didn’t know what they were doing.

Walls were built incorrectly/wonky. There were massive leaks on 2 occasions as one of the team hammered into the water mains and rather than doing something about it, stood staring at it for 5 minutes before I realised something was wrong and turned off the supply from the street (thankfully I was at home on this day!). The second leak was when this same person cut through a pipe without checking what it was, sending scalding hot water raining down. Luckily nobody was hurt!

We eventually fired these builders (as advised by building control) when it became clear they did not know how to put our house back together after smashing away walls downstairs, leaving the entire back of our house supported (incorrectly) on acro props.

It was then that we were glad to at least have Simply’s customer service. Lorraine was really helpful in resolving the situation and finding a new build team (very quickly, at short notice around Christmas!) to right the issues.

Our feelings about that customer service however, were diminished when despite having agreed a price reduction should an initial estimate for steel not be met, Rob (the owner of Simply) told us that it wasn’t binding because this was not agreed in the quote, just over email. A technicality, which cynically I presumed a way to recoup the cost of the repairs to the poor work we’d had carried out.

Ultimately, we got what we wanted. But it was far from Simple.

Joshua Leccia

I just wanted to leave some feedback for Simply and the team. From the very he understood exactly what I was trying to achieve, I was looking to move as quickly as possible which he enabled, and the guys worked incredibly hard. They also had me complicating elements by doing a lot of work myself which they not only facilitated, but also provided really useful advice and help throughout. Great communication and I knew exactly what was going on and when, I am really happy with the finished product and would definitely work with Simply again.

Nick Davies

We engaged Simply to create a completely open plan ground floor, which meant pushing out and rebuilding an extension. A great service from start to finish. The initial consultation was helpful and useful. The actual construction team were excellent. The project manager was communicative and helpful. The team onsite were professional, very competent and made suggestions that demonstrated their skill and expertise. The team were flexible when we hit any (existing property related) snags, were very adaptable and reasonable for add-ons, and work well with the couple of other trades necessary. A really good experience that has delivered a space that is probably better than we could have hoped, and to a really high standard.

Christopher Seychell

This review is based on my honest experience of Simply Construction group. Please note and that this company also trades under (Simply Extend, Simply Loft, Simply Basement subsidiaries). It is a duty to share my impartial experience of the company, both good and bad.

This review has been rewritten since posting a review. We have been intimidated with the threat of legal action in writing by the company for 'breach of contract' unless I remove this review. I used this platform to inform my decision before signing the contract and now makes sense why there are only 5 stars on here. Customers are being quashed by an unfair clause and 'restricted' to share any negative experience. I'm quite astounded by the behaviour of the company after 18 months of an extremely stressful relationship. Had I noticed they wanted a non disparagement clause - would have made me question the company to begin with.

I was a genuine customer of Simply Construction (Simply Extend) and I have personally never experienced a company like this. I felt it was such poor management and customer service from them, lacking in any form of responsibility or accountability on their part. The build itself took approx 6 months, however we had prior planning and preparation issues - mostly due to Customer service manager Lorraine Arnold and their appointed architect. The sales pitch from owner and director Rob Wood was extremely impressive and felt this was the company for us. After checking online reviews (5 star...I now know why) we signed up, paid our nearly £10k deposit, this is where things deteriorated and we never saw or heard from Rob again through the process.

Simply's appointed architect (Virtue Architecture) came to the house only once, big talks from them which felt like they were promising our dream kitchen. We wanted amends to certain design plans and requested glazing to be incorporated , they said it could be changed post planning submission but this was not the case - only changes we could have would be additional costs (so no dream kitchen as we anticipated). I've no architect experience but knew that the steel beam drawings and engineer work was not right. There was an entire large chimney breast on the 1st floor left unchecked and unsupported. A second set of drawings was made only to be realised by our builder on site that these were still wrong. 3rd time lucky, we had a surveyor friend who double checked over the drawings and made the necessary changes and checks. Extra £££ to the budget for missed beams and potential near miss of failed structural integrity to the house.

This company appoints 3rd party builders and subcontracts (although under contract of Simply). They push all responsibility to the 3rd party (again not the safety net that we were told they offered). From my experience and months of being ignored by customer service when I consistently reached out for guidance or help managing something through and when I did, my impression was that of passive aggressive language by the customer service manager. The only positive I will say is that the 3rd party builder they appointed had common sense, experience and regular communication with us.

Post all these issues, we then chased for 14 months for building control sign off. Months and months of Simply ignoring us, or the occasional 'we'll look into this'. Finally being told after all that time 'it's not our responsibility'...this sums up the entire project process. We were hoping for a company with good service, management and experience with structural integrity - this unfortunately was not in our case with Simply Extend.

UPDATE 18 Dec 23: This review is no longer under legal investigation - due to the fact that this company withdrew their claim of suing us. A gag clause in a contract does not hold up in court and they learnt this by losing against another customer they were suing. Do your due diligence, read the fine print and take caution if considering this company. We learnt the heard way.

Janet Knapton

We are so happy with our downstairs extension. We have had builders, on previous work done, requiring more payment than agreed and threatening to leave the project unfinished so using Simply Extend provided us with the piece of mind that our project would be completed at the agreed upon price. Our builders were amazing and finished the job ahead of schedule. They were friendly and very professional. Our extension is beautiful!

Kitsy Kinane

Excellent side return extension
We completed a side return extension in Hackney late last year and contracted Simply to do the work for us. We have ended up with a fabulous bright, warm. sunny kitchen-diner and are absolutely delighted with the result. Simply’s surveyor was very helpful and gave us a very detailed and competitive quote as well as making some helpful design suggestions. Sami and his team who were doing the construction work were fantastic. Always arrived on time and kept to a very tight schedule finishing the work much faster than we anticipated but without compromising on the standard of work. We’re very happy with the result