N7 Design Studio Ltd.

Great service from N7, always happy to help with any issues or queries. Would highly recommend.
Feb 9th, 2022

Dec 17th, 2021

Following my husbands review of N7, David Stewart the owner of KS Property Maintenance (the builder) recommended N7 and four others including the joiner and the joiner's girlfriend in the space of 24 hours. Further, HOUZZ is a paid advertising website which from looking at its trustpilot reviews, consumers, including ourselves are unable to share negative experiences. In our opinion the drawings were inaccurate, the inspect and report service was not carried out and N7 acted in the interests of the builder not ours, resulting in an expensive mistake. The description of inaccurate drawings can be seen in a different review. Towards the end of construction Nick apologies for not carrying out a site inspection and said this was due to Covid restrictions. Scottish Government Covid restrictions in place at the time permitted inspections as well as construction, the two go hand in hand. Nick claims his inspections have been carried out virtually through photos etc. We have great difficulty believing this so requested copies of the photos, which he has been unwilling or unable to provide. Nick attended a site meeting following our discovery of a reduced footprint and head height. Nick cites that his main focus (of the meeting) was to implement the agreed changes with the Building Control Officer and David Stewart. It is disappointing that he did not seek our approval nor inform us of any changes, particularly as he has been paid a fee to do exactly that. The change to insulation was later explained (after payment) as it was proposed by the contractor as a quicker more cost-effective way to insulate the space. It is little wonder the builder is singing his praises. Nick deemed the meeting as an exceptional circumstance to breach whatever Covid restrictions he had in mind due to an impromptu phone call. Nick already agreed to the meeting 2 days prior to the phone call. We brought this to his attention, but he still persisted with that excuse despite email evidence to the contrary. During our own inspections, we noticed a plastic combustible cladding had been put up rather than the specified non-combustible material. When we raised this issue, Nicks response was to complain to us that this will all now require to be replaced, noting the impact on the project and potential delay to completion. There is a shortfall of 18cm of what was an already compromised head height. This issue was repeatedly ignored until a lengthy letter was sent by recorded delivery. Nick explained that the shortfall is acceptable because we have a completion certificate. Nick had no jurisdiction to substitute the approved contract drawings with what he saw fit. Nick submitted an amendment to building warrant without our knowledge nor approval. The drawings contained errors, which would have been obvious from a visual inspection. Further, he has willfully refused to provide us with a copy of a council report relating to the amendment (that we are the applicants of, on our home) as our input was not required. Nick claimed his 3 page construction contract is more detailed than the 40 page RIBA domestic works contract. We beg to differ. In our opinion the contract presented was not fair and balanced, providing more protection to the builder. It is nothing like other industry standard contracts such as SBCC JCT. There was no requirement for the builder to have insurance. We made changes to the contract which Nick objected to and said we had muddied the waters. Up until the point of issues arising Nick comes across very well. We were therefore happy for him to carry out the tender process. We asked to be copied in on all correspondence. We werent. We have subsequently repeated our request for full emails relating to our tender process, which he is unwilling or unable to provide. In our opinion Nick has abused the position of trust he was placed in. He also attempted to intimidate us into not writing anything on social media.
Dec 11th, 2021

Cant recommend nick highly, we used N7 for our rear extension & front porch, Nicks attention to detail throughout the job was 2nd to none.
Nov 20th, 2021

Our advice would be to avoid N7 Design Studio & Nick Walker, control your own tender process, and use architectural services that are regulated by a professional body such as RIBA or CIAT. Since adding our original review the builder Nick recommended and his workers have added false positive reviews which have been reported to google as 'Conflict of Interest' (see picture). In our opinion, the original consented drawings were inaccurate and unbuildable and Nicks role to inspect and report on the construction was not carried out. We raised several issues with Nick Walker, which have generally been ignored, deflected with insults and unfounded criticism of ourselves or deemed as an unsubstantiated claim. We found Nick to be untrustworthy, arrogant and deceitful. The consented drawings of our loft conversion can be found on the City of Edinburgh planning portal under planning consent 19/04561/FUL. Our expectation was that the East to West (EW) dimension would accommodate a double bed with a swing door as depicted in the drawings. The drawing scale is 1:50 at A3, and if printed out at A3 and known dimensions are checked to ensure the correct scale is being used, our reading is that the EW dimension is 3m. The photo shows the EW dimension at 2.4m. Nick has accepted no responsibility and instead continues to shift the blame on to us. He says we made assumptions about the height of the dwarf walls as there is no reference to the height of the walls on any of his drawings. We reminded him that the dwarf wall heights were discussed at length during the design stage resulting in changes to the draft planning drawings. We also reminded him of an email he sent that explains the walls will be 1.1m high (which is the height of the walls in the photo, built following his instructions). Yet despite this, Nick continued to shift the blame on us for making assumptions. It seems to us that there is little point engaging with Nick when it is not possible to rely on what he has written or what he has said. The drawings actually show the height of the western gable to be 2.25m high. His drawings are so inaccurate that the floor plan and the elevations do not align. The floor plan suggests a straight gable and the elevations show a hipped gable. We believe this shows the measured survey has not been carried out properly. The other line of defence offered by Nick was that all of my drawings include do not scale. This is untrue, the sketch and the planning drawings do not contain this disclaimer, but we are of the view it does not excuse a 60cm difference. Further, it is a scaled drawing so the bed and the door are proportional to the room size. We met with the builder and Nick Walker to discuss the issues. It was impossible to make the footprint bigger, so given we were in an impossible situation with the build so far down the line, we agreed on a number of mitigation measures. Following the meeting Nick Walker drew up a plan of what was built, obviously this differed to the original drawings with a reduction in footprint. Arrogantly, he later claims we had approved his drawings. We did not. It is a drawing of a build we were stuck with, not what we desired nor approved of. At the same time we also raised the issue of the head height which is explicitly stated on the drawings. We requested a report on this matter, which he ignored. We wrote to him explaining that the head height depicted on the drawings was unachievable; this was also ignored. It took a lengthy letter sent by recorded delivery to get a response. To our surprise, the response now recognised there was a shortfall, but explained that this was because the builder did not build it in accordance with the approved drawings. Nick Walker clearly has demonstrated he has issues with transparency and with clients who expect the build to be in accordance with the drawings. He has acted to protect the interests of the builder on a number of occasions. The list of issues described above is far from exhaustive.
Nov 6th, 2021