Standard terms & conditions
Ion Gardens
Standard terms and conditions
Please read our standard terms and conditions carefully, and ask us to explain or clarify anything that isn’t clear. We will ask you to put in writing that you agree to all the terms and conditions before we start work. If you ask us to amend any conditions, this may have an effect on the price.
Our standard design process
Our process starts with a free site visit. We will look at your home and garden and take photographs and measurements. We will spend time with you discussing what you would like to do with your space, and make a few suggestions to see what you think.
After this we will provide a quotation for the design work.
Next, we return to present two different designs with mood boards – generally, one design closely following the brief, and one more imaginative; and/or two designs at different levels of cost. Both will be roughly costed. We will note your feedback and requests.
Taking your comments on board, we prepare a final design, which we return to talk through with you.
After this visit, we can provide a quotation for the work, or more detailed plans to carry out for yourself or for your own contractor. If we are providing plans that are not for our own use, these will have to be communicate more and be more detailed, and will therefore cost more.
Payment and working hours
Our core working hours are 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday for the office and for site work. In addition, site work can happen over the weekend and on bank holidays.
When we work on a day rate, this assumes a 7½ hour day. This is an 8 hour day with two quarter hour paid tea breaks. Lunch break is not paid.
Schedule of payment for works
40 per cent before work starts
40 per cent after main structural works and/or bulk of planting
10 per cent on final completion
10 per cent one calendar month after final completion
Please make all payments by cheque or via bank transfer to
Ion Gardens Ltd
Barclays Bank
Sort code 20 66 55
Account number 93145549
If bills are not paid within the agreed time period, we will add interest at the rate of bank base rate plus three per cent.
Prices we quote include removal of waste. Please let us know if your local council will take any waste, as this will save you money. We may have to leave waste outside your home for collection, but we will make it as tidy as possible.
The site
Before work starts, we will agree about access to site. This could include
times to stop and start each day
times to limit any noisy work
whether we can work at the weekend and/or public holidays
whether we can have keys to access the site when you’re out
You will provide parking for one vehicle on site, including giving us parking permits if they are required.
We expect to have access to:
somewhere safe to lock our tools
electricity for power tools
wc and hand washing facilities
running water and a power point for hot drinks
We will bring our own soap/towels/kettle/mugs/drinks.
We provide all reasonable protection to your house, including where the access to the garden is through the house. Please draw our attention to anything you think requires particular care. We will carry out a condition survey of the house before we start work.
We will do our best to keep the site clean tidy and clear, but while we are working there will be a degree of mess for which we cannot be held responsible.
We will do a reasonable clear up at the end of each working day. Final site clearance will be at the end of the job.
If there is a hazard on site, the client is responsible for our safe working environment, whether or not the hazard is known to the client.
We will not be held responsible liable for damage to underground services which have been illegally carried out.
If builders’ rubble is found on site during the job, the client will be responsible for funding its removal and disposal. The presence of rubble will cause a delay in the programme. We will let you know how much it will cost for us to clear the rubble and agree a price for this this before we do so.
Sometimes, our work will depend on you having done work in advance of our arrival on site. If you don’t complete this according to our agreed schedule, we might charge you for the delay.
We will agree with you in advance what to do about any deliveries to site when we are not present to receive them. Any damage incurred from deliveries being made will not be our responsibility.
Plants
We supply good quality plants, and take care in planting them. We select plants that are suited to the places in your garden where they will do well, and we supply or improve soil that won’t support healthy plants. We will give you information about how to look after them in your garden. However once we have left, we cannot take responsibility for how well the plants thrive as this will be out of our control.
Plants are living products that depend on the weather, and we cannot be responsible for delays due to availability. Busy times for the nursery industry may delay the arrival of plants. Locating specific plants may take longer. We reserve the right to replace plants where those specified on the design are not available. We will endeavour to replace them with plants that are as similar as possible.
We will replace any plants which are delivered damaged. We may ask you to keep these on site until we are able to do this.
If you are unhappy with the quality of any of the plants, please tell us before they are planted.
Before work starts, we will make an agreed list with you of any established planting that is to be maintained. We will remove plants that are not on the list, and we will not be responsible for them. We retain the right to salvage any plants which are removed unless it has been specifically established with the client.
It takes time for plants to grow in and establish into a garden. We do not plant at the density of planting that the finished garden is planned to, regardless of cost, because the plants will not grow and establish properly.
Communication
One of our team at Ion will be the single point of contact on each job for you. This saves time on both sides and improves communication. If there is more than one client (for example, both partners in a household) would you please choose one person to be the one point of contact for us.
We will endeavour to respond to phone calls, emails and texts by the end of the working day. If we are contacted outside of our standard working day we will endeavour to respond on the next working day.
Additional costs
Once the design and schedule have been agreed, we will always try to accommodate any changes that you ask us to make. However, sometimes there may be reasons why this is not possible, or why it will cost more to do so.
Once we have agreed a timetable with you, putting the job “on hold” may incur extra cost.
We will ask you to sign the design and plant lists before we start. After this, any changes to the design will need to be agreed in writing between you and us. If we agree changes verbally, we will send you an email of confirmation, and we will assume that this is accepted unless we hear otherwise in writing. While verbal contracts are legally binding, we ask you to put requests in writing, as it’s all easy to forget or misunderstand conversations held on a busy site.
Other
We reserve the right to use material for our marketing and records, including still and moving video images, unless you specifically ask us not to in writing at the beginning of the contract.
We do not allow clients to help us with the work in terms of our working practices and liabilities, unless this has been specifically agreed beforehand.