About Couloir

Sam Cowan comes from a family of property professionals. He graduated with BSc (Hons) in Urban Estate Management in 1994 and holds a RICS Accreditation in Construction Project Management. 

He founded Couloir Ltd in 2011 after a long career in Investment Banking, 

Couloir Property Consultants Ltd is a family run business with real hands on, on site experience. We know a soffit from a fascia, we know where the gable end is and we know that timing and organisation in construction is everything. 

We are not spreadsheet, formula or office based. We are in the car, muddy fields, shaking hands in a high viz vest and ensuring the quality of our product.

We are independent, we ensure accountability from builders and professionals.  

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Why new build development and construction management? 

  • Construction in all of its guises, is a highly specialised endeavour. Our new build heritage means we are best placed to deliver. 

  • We have spent a great deal of time involved in the construction industry, either planning and executing our own developments and renovations or advising investors and homeowners on theirs

  • We understand industry jargon and the processes required in any construction project

  • We place huge value on formailsed scheduled site meetings, frequent site visits, and accountability. We have learnt how to get the best from these exchanges.

  • It can be incredibly hard to anticipate many problematic elements that so often arise in any building project. Anticipating and overcoming these challenges makes us perfectly placed to manage any project. 

  • Building projects typically span weeks or months and during that time, they involve a huge number of moving parts. Running them “on the side” invariably leads to shortcomings and problems arising. 

  • Without experience it can be difficult to challenge poor building standards or question bad practices. In our experience if issues are not addressed in a timely manner they often lead to cost and time over runs 

  • We have seen time and again that poor communication, lack of accountability, poor day to day productivity and time planning as the main cause of project failure.

What percentage of construction projects incur time or cost over runs ?

  • 85% of all self build or renovation construction projects incur either cost or time over runs.

  • The self build cost over run average is about 28% of the original budget.

  • In 3 years only 31% of all projects came within 10% of their budget.

  • Large projects take 20% longer to finish than expected and are up to 80% over budget.

  • Construction material and labour cost inflation have risen on average 10% per annum for the last 3 years. Current build costs for new builds stand at £180psf. 

* www.propelleraero.com

What is your project management fee structure ? What areas do you cover ? 

  • Fees are either a fixed negotiated charge of the total construction cost or a fixed hourly charge based upon the scale of management time incurred, not including out of pocket disbursements & travel.

  • We are largely location agnostic however most of our relationships are based in the South East of England (Oxon, Berks, Bucks) and following our own developments there, in North Wales.

  • Practicality of regular site visits and ensuring accountability tend to be the constraining factors. 

Contact us now for more information on how we work