Have you ever taken on your own building project, like a conservatory or house extension, or are you a small builder competing against the big boys?

If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then you know how important it is to have reliable suppliers for your building materials. You don't want to be left standing with an empty wheelbarrow when your order for ready mixed concrete fails to ,materialise, for example.

The problem with selecting your suppliers through the Yellow Pages is that you often end up phoning a central shipping line 100 miles from where you live. The staff there have no local knowledge and are more likely to make mistakes when planning routes and delivery times leaving you fuming at the other end of a telephone.

There is also the chance that in a huge industry that sells 30,000,000 cubic metres of concrete a year, your order for two or three cubic metres may receive less priority than a much bigger order from a huge national company.

It may be only a few metres of building material to the suppliers but it's your dream project or livelihood that suffers a setback. The good news to local DIY enthusiasts, self-employed builders and small construction companies, is that you need never suffer this frustration again when ordering concrete, thanks to a Kingswinford-based company. Accumix Concrete, based at Oakdale Trading Estate, Ham Lane can offer the total solution in concrete and mix your order to your specifications at your chosen location, within minutes.

The feat is made possible by the use of revolutionary mixing technology in the form of their state-of-the-art Volumetric concrete batching plants. Each can produce a cubic metre of concrete all day, so one of the super-mixers can do in 10 minutes, what it would take you three hours to do with an ordinary concrete mixer.

In addition, Stephen Phillips, of Accumix Concrete - a local man with 12 years experience in the industry - is well aware of the problems people face and is on hand to assist and offer advice to all customers.

Mr Phillips is convinced his firm offers a service which is "the future of local ready mixed concrete".

He said: "People can phone up and ask questions and can give us dimensions and let us work out the volume and type of mix required."

We will do site visits if necessary and advise on the best way to get concrete on to the site in question and we will wait while people move the material in the wheelbarrows - ours is not a 'dump-it-and-run' policy.

"We provide exactly the amount you require so there is no wastage - you only pay for what you lay.

"We are an expanding local company, looking to employ local people. We are here to stay and invite people to give us a try."

Accumix Concrete employs 10 people and has sites in Kingswinford, Bromsgrove and Redditch and is looking to expand into other areas.

They have six lorries delivering six days a week.

FACT FILE

Company

Accumic Concrete Ltd

Managers

Stephen Phillips

Business Type

Supplier of ready mix concrete

Established

2003

Telephone

01384 296 986; fax 01384 294880

Web Address

Email Address

Location

Oakdale Trading Estate

Ham Lane

Kingswinford

DY6 7JH