Builders in Dorset, Devon & Somerset

Building, refurbishment & renovation across the South West

The South West has some of the most beautiful housing stock in the country: stone cottages, converted farmhouses, listed village terraces, alongside modern builds and everything in between. OWB Plumbing & Building takes on renovation and refurbishment projects across that range. Whether you're reworking a tired house room by room or bringing an older property back to life, we plan it, run it and see it through.

We're based near Dorchester, serving Dorset, Devon and Somerset, and we bring combined decades of trade experience to every job. Plumbing is our own trade. The rest of a build we manage. Over the years we've built close relationships with skilled local trades for every part of a project: groundworkers, bricklayers, roofers, plasterers, carpenters, electricians, decorators. We pull together the right people, run the schedule, and stay your single point of contact from first visit to final invoice. Honestly, the project management is where we earn our keep. It's the part that goes wrong on most jobs, and it's the part we're good at.

One team, every trade coordinated

Most renovation projects need several trades working in the right order, and that's exactly where jobs tend to fall apart: trades booked out of sequence, nobody taking ownership, the homeowner left chasing five different numbers. We take that off your plate. We plan the sequence, book the trades, keep the site moving, and deal with the surprises that always turn up once the walls are open. One point of contact, one schedule, one invoice.

Period & listed properties

Older properties need a careful approach, not a quick modernisation. A lot of what gets called "restoration" is really modernisation that harms the building long-term. On period and listed work we keep it sympathetic and bring in trades who genuinely know traditional materials: lime mortar and lime plaster on solid-wall cottages so the building can breathe, sash-window repair, traditional pointing. Where listed-building consent is involved, we work within it and liaise with the conservation officer.

Work like this often means repointing stone walls, replacing rotten lintels and timbers, restoring sash windows, swapping inappropriate modern cement for lime, and sorting damp caused by past incorrect repairs, putting back what shouldn't have been taken out in the first place.

Whole-house renovations

For a full renovation (strip-out, structural, first-fix plumbing and electric, insulation, second-fix, tiling, kitchen and bathroom, flooring, decoration) we handle the whole sequence. See our refurbishments page for how those projects are structured.

Smaller building works

Not every job is a full renovation. Knocking through a wall to open up a space, removing a chimney breast, building a new partition, or putting right a past piece of poor workmanship: we can take these on and bring in the right trade where the job calls for it.

Why OWB for building in the South West

• Family-run team, not a faceless contractor
• Strong project management: one team running the whole job
• Plumbing done in-house; every other trade coordinated through people we trust
• Close relationships with skilled local trades for every part of a build
• Sympathetic to period and listed properties
• Traditional materials where they belong (lime mortar, lime plaster)
• Written quotes, clear schedules, no hidden charges
• 10/10 on Checkatrade for quality and reliability

Areas we cover

Building work across Dorchester, Bridport, Beaminster, Weymouth, Sherborne, Lyme Regis, Axminster, Honiton, Seaton, Sidmouth, Exeter, Chard, Crewkerne, Yeovil, Ilminster and Taunton, plus the rural villages in between. For larger projects we're comfortable travelling further within the Dorset/Devon/Somerset footprint.

Building work we cover

Frequently asked questions