A small building company with a deliberate limit.
Karri & Co is a small Perth building company that does extensions, renovations and rebuilds, and does not do anything else.
That is a deliberate limit. A builder running new estate homes, commercial fit-outs and heritage renovations at the same time is running three different businesses with one set of trades. We picked the one we are good at.
- Registered
- BC 10482
- ABN
- 12 345 678 901
- Building since
- 2008
- Homes delivered
- 240+
Home indemnity and $20m public liability. Member of Master Builders WA and Housing Industry Association. Certificates come with the contract rather than on request.
The studio, Mount Lawley
Tom KarriRegistered builder, BC 10482
Tom served his carpentry apprenticeship in Fremantle, spent nine years working on character homes across the western suburbs, and registered as a builder in 2008.
He is on every site visit, writes every fixed-price contract, and is the person who tells clients when their idea will not work. That last part is why the business exists in the shape it does — it was the thing he could never do properly working for someone else.
“The best compliment we get is when someone asks which part of the house is the new bit and gets it wrong.”
How the business got to its current shape.
Five changes, each of which came out of getting something wrong first.
- 2008
Registered as a builder
After nine years on the tools, mostly on character homes between Fremantle and Claremont.
- 2013
First second-storey addition
A Menora brick-and-tile that needed the upper floor carried on new steel through the existing house. It set the way we have done them since.
- 2018
Fixed price on every job
We stopped quoting cost-plus entirely. It meant longer at the front end investigating, and it ended the arguments at the back end.
- 2021
The six-month check
Added as standard on every contract. Timber moves, tiles settle, and the things that show up at six months are worth coming back for.
- Today
Four sites at a time
A deliberate ceiling. It is the number where the supervisor is genuinely on your job rather than driving between six of them.
Small enough that you know who is on your site.
Four sites at a time is a deliberate ceiling. It is the number at which the supervisor is genuinely on your job rather than driving between six of them.
Two supervisors
Site supervision
One assigned to your build from the first day to the last. You have their mobile number.
In-house
Carpentry
Framing, roofing and fixing carpentry are ours, not subcontracted. It is the trade that sets the standard for everything after it.
Long-standing subcontractors
Trades
The same electrician, plumber, plasterer and tiler on every job. Most have been with us over a decade.
One coordinator
Office
Approvals, scheduling, certificates and the Friday update. The reason paperwork does not go missing.
Five things, written into every contract.
- 01A fixed price on every contract, signed before construction starts.
- 02One supervisor per site, from first sketch to final clean.
- 03A written update every Friday, including the weeks where nothing went to plan.
- 04A six-month return visit on every job, booked on handover day.
- 05An honest no when the job does not stack up.
Meet the person who would run your build.
Free to have us out, about an hour on site, and you leave with a written summary of what is feasible and a realistic budget band.