There is a peculiar inflection point in the life of every growing residential construction firm in London. You have successfully navigated the early years, built a solid reputation, and now you are managing not one or two, but five, six, or even ten projects simultaneously. You have hired more project managers, expanded your roster of trusted subcontractors, and your revenue is climbing. On paper, everything looks brilliant. Yet, beneath the surface, something fundamental has shifted, and not for the better.
The communication system that served you so well when you were running two or three projects—the combination of WhatsApp groups, email chains, and the occasional spreadsheet—has begun to buckle under the weight of your success. Messages are getting lost, critical decisions are being made without the right people in the loop, and you are spending an inordinate amount of time simply trying to figure out what is happening across your various sites. This is not a sign of poor management; it is a structural problem that afflicts nearly every medium-sized construction firm as it scales.
When you are managing a single project, or even two, keeping everyone aligned is relatively straightforward. You know your site manager, your electrician, your plumber, and you can keep track of progress with a few phone calls and a weekly site visit. However, as you add more projects, the complexity does not increase linearly—it increases exponentially. Suddenly, you are not just managing five projects; you are managing the interactions between dozens of people across multiple locations, all of whom need timely information to do their jobs effectively.
Consider the typical scenario for a medium-sized London residential builder running six refurbishment projects across zones two and three. You might have the same electrician working on three different sites, but different plumbers on each project. Your project manager is splitting their time between all six sites, which means they are only physically present at each location once or twice a week. In their absence, site managers and trades are making decisions and encountering problems that need immediate attention. The question becomes: how does that information get communicated to the people who need to know?
For many firms, the answer is a chaotic web of WhatsApp groups, individual text messages, and email threads. Each project might have its own WhatsApp group, but then there are also separate groups for specific trades, and then direct messages between individuals. Before long, you have fifteen different WhatsApp groups, and no one is quite sure which group to use for which type of message. Important decisions get buried in a thread about where to grab lunch, and when someone needs to find a critical piece of information from two weeks ago, they are scrolling through hundreds of messages across multiple platforms. This is the hidden trap, and it is costing you far more than you realise.
Challenge / Impact on Medium-Sized Builders
Information Silos / Critical updates on one project don't reach teams on other projects, leading to repeated mistakes.
WhatsApp Overload / Multiple groups create confusion about where to post updates, causing missed messages.
PM Spread Thin / Project managers can't be on all sites simultaneously, leading to delayed decision-making.
Subcontractor Confusion / Trades working on multiple projects receive conflicting instructions across different channels.
Lost Documentation / Important decisions made via text or voice call are not recorded, creating disputes later.
At this point, many medium-sized builders start looking at enterprise construction management platforms like Procore or Fieldwire, hoping they will solve the communication chaos. These are powerful tools, no doubt, but they come with significant drawbacks for firms of your size. Firstly, they are expensive. Procore, for instance, can cost thousands of pounds per month, a substantial overhead when you are still in growth mode and trying to maintain healthy profit margins. Secondly, they are complex. These platforms are designed for large-scale commercial projects with dedicated administrative staff to manage the system. For a medium-sized residential builder, the learning curve is steep, and the features are often overkill for what you actually need.
Coconstruct, another popular option, is more tailored to residential work, but it is primarily focused on client communication and sales, rather than the day-to-day coordination between you and your subcontractors. It does not solve the core problem of keeping your electricians, plumbers, and site managers all on the same page across multiple active projects. You need something that sits in the middle: powerful enough to handle the complexity of multiple projects, but simple and affordable enough that it does not become a burden in itself.
The financial impact of poor communication at this scale is staggering, though it often goes unnoticed because it manifests as a series of small inefficiencies rather than one catastrophic failure. As we have explored in our post on "The Hidden 11% Cost: How Poor Communication Between Trades Is Destroying Your Construction Budget", communication breakdowns can add up to 11% of your total project costs through rework, delays, and duplicated effort.
For a medium-sized builder running six projects with an average value of £300,000 each, that 11% communication tax translates to nearly £200,000 in lost profit annually. This is not a theoretical number; it is the cumulative effect of an electrician having to return to a site because they were not informed of a last-minute change, a plumber ordering the wrong fixtures because the specification was updated in an email they never saw, and a project manager spending two hours a day simply trying to track down information that should be readily available.
Beyond the direct financial cost, there is also the opportunity cost. Every hour your project manager spends hunting for information in WhatsApp threads or clarifying miscommunications is an hour they are not spending on higher-value activities like building client relationships, securing new projects, or mentoring junior staff. For a growing firm, this inefficiency can be the difference between scaling successfully and stalling out.
This is precisely the problem that BRCKS was designed to solve. Unlike enterprise platforms that require extensive training and come with eye-watering price tags, BRCKS is purpose-built for residential construction firms that are managing multiple projects and need a centralised communication hub without the complexity or cost of enterprise software.
With BRCKS, every project has its own dedicated space, but all of your projects live within a single, unified platform. This means your project manager can see at a glance what is happening across all six sites without having to switch between multiple WhatsApp groups or dig through email inboxes. When your electrician, who is working on three of your projects, logs in, they see only the information relevant to them, neatly organised by project. No more confusion about which group to post in, no more missed messages, and no more critical information getting lost in the noise.
Crucially, BRCKS creates an auditable trail of all communication and decisions. When a change is made to the specification on one project, it is documented in the platform, and everyone who needs to know is notified. This eliminates the "he said, she said" disputes that are so common when relying on text messages and verbal agreements, as discussed in our post "WhatsApp Construction Contracts: The Hidden Legal Risks London Contractors Face in 2025".
Bonchurch BC, a London-based construction and maintenance company operating at a similar scale, reported that implementing BRCKS saved their management team one hour per day per user. For a firm with three project managers, that is fifteen hours a week—nearly two full working days—that can be reinvested into actually building, rather than simply trying to stay organised.
The transition from a small builder to a medium-sized operation is one of the most challenging phases in the lifecycle of a construction firm. The systems and habits that got you to five projects will not get you to ten, and recognising this early is the key to sustainable growth. Your communication infrastructure needs to evolve alongside your business, and waiting until the chaos becomes unbearable is a costly mistake.
The good news is that the solution does not require a massive investment or a complete overhaul of how you work. It simply requires a platform that understands the unique needs of medium-sized residential builders and provides the right level of functionality without the bloat. BRCKS is that platform, and it is designed to grow with you, whether you are managing five projects today or fifteen next year.
Do not let your success become your downfall. If you are running multiple projects and finding that your communication system is starting to crack, it is time to take action before those cracks become chasms. The firms that thrive in this growth phase are the ones that invest in the right tools at the right time, and for medium-sized London builders, that tool is BRCKS.
•The Hidden 11% Cost: How Poor Communication Between Trades Is Destroying Your Construction Budget
•Why 68% of UK Residential Construction Projects Go Over Budget (And How to Stop It)
•How Small London Builders Can Outmanoeuvre Big Construction Firms (Without Breaking the Bank)
•WhatsApp Construction Contracts: The Hidden Legal Risks London Contractors Face in 2025
BRCKS is currently in a private beta, offering medium-sized residential construction firms a better way to manage multiple projects and communicate effectively across all sites. If you are tired of the chaos of juggling multiple WhatsApp groups, lost emails, and information silos, it is time to try a solution built specifically for builders like you.
This blog post draws on industry research and best practices for managing multiple construction projects, with specific insights tailored to the London residential construction market.
