Buildings and residential covers the widest sector CRS works in. Private and mixed-use residential blocks. High-rise and mid-rise apartment buildings. Purpose-built student accommodation. Older concrete-framed buildings from the post-war and 1960s to 1980s eras where deterioration is now a live asset management issue. New-build defects surfacing under warranty. Historic and listed residential buildings requiring sensitive intervention. The technical work is often similar across these; the procurement route, occupancy considerations and stakeholder complexity vary substantially.
The specific challenges in this sector concentrate around three areas. First, concrete deterioration in ageing stock, particularly reinforcement corrosion driving spalling on balconies, façades and exposed elements. Second, working in occupied buildings where residents, leaseholders, managing agents and freeholders all have a stake in how the works are delivered. Third, meeting the increasingly stringent safety and compliance requirements that apply to residential building stock, from balcony safety and cladding-related structural work through to CDM 2015 and Building Safety Act obligations.
CRS works directly for freeholders, managing agents, resident management companies, developers and main contractors delivering residential refurbishment. Where CRS is appointed as Principal Contractor on a residential scheme, we take on the full CDM 2015 duties and stakeholder coordination that role requires. Where we work as a specialist sub-contractor to another Principal Contractor, we provide the technical documentation and safety governance their role requires.
Residential works are almost always delivered in occupied buildings. Programme, phasing, dust and noise management, working hours, resident liaison and reinstatement of external areas are planned into every scheme. Emergency and make-safe works are treated with the priority they warrant when safety of residents or public is at stake.