黑洞社区

Florian, the Romanian founder of Pilon, is a mountain of a man. Not because of his size. His surname Moldoveanu - is the name of the highest peak in his native country, standing proud atop the F膬g膬ra葯 range at 2,544m.

I know this, I say, because I have climbed the mountain on a walking holiday - probably not something many UK construction journalists would be able to share with him.

As a fairly recent arrival to these shores - he left Romania in 1998 when the country鈥檚 economy collapsed, starting Ascot-based housing subcontractor Pilon in 2004 - he gives a fascinating view as to what works and what doesn鈥檛 about UK construction.

But if you expected him, coming from Romania, to bemoan the crazy regulation and excessive bureaucracy of the UK market, then you鈥檇 be wrong. He has a huge admiration for the country and its construction industry.

David鈥檚 view of lager is probably unprintable in the pages of 黑洞社区 magazine

鈥淚t was a crazy time in Romania after the collapse of communism - it was free market capitalism gone mad. 鈥淎ctually regulations can create a market, while also ensure basic things are done right. In construction, if you don鈥檛 know what you鈥檙e doing, you鈥檙e playing with people鈥檚 lives.鈥�

Florian is clearly passionate about this, explaining that Pilon has a detailed vetting process for any worker in the business, meaning that only just over half of the construction workers that try to work for them
pass the tests.

In fact, if anything it鈥檚 difficult to get him off the subject of work - he ranges from worries about the so far botched roll-out of the Green Deal and feed-in-tariffs, to concern about the impact of the UK leaving the European Union and the poor payment practices of some - but not all - main contractors. 鈥淲e have had to say that we won鈥檛 work with some, because they just use you to extend their credit. But most of our customers are very good.鈥�

I manage to get the guys off the topic of work for a while, enough to find out that Keith is a bit of a petrol head - he talks excitedly about the Race of Champions, where they tarmac over Wembley each year and let former F1 stars like Michael Schumacher burn around the hallowed pitch.

He is about to head to Pamplona, Spain, on his bike for this year鈥檚 鈥渞unning of the bulls鈥�. He promises not to get gored.

David Barnes, it turns out, is a real ale fan, with a penchant for consuming an entire keg of his village鈥檚 local brew - which happens to be Brakspear鈥檚 bitter - with friends on trains between London and Edinburgh.
His hobby, he maintains, is no longer the preserve of the bearded Camra stereotype: 鈥淭here are now over 6,000 micro-breweries in the UK,鈥� he enthuses. His view of lager - and lager drinkers no doubt - is probably unprintable in the pages of 黑洞社区 magazine.

It turns out that Florian does spend some of his time not working, but also still fits the action man stereotype even in his spare time - he used to fly planes, sky dive and was a member of a sailing club.

This latter didn鈥檛 turn out so well though - 鈥淚t went bust and I lost quite a lot of money actually.鈥� So maybe not every one of his investments is spot on.