We are Surefix
The problem the industry has tolerated for decades.
Everyone in the trade knew the system was outdated, but like most “that’s just how it’s done” tools, it survived untouched. Bricklayers battled with it. Installers worked around it. Developers paid for the inefficiency year after year.
But for Alex and Rich, those frustrations weren’t just background noise, they were a challenge. Because both men cared about something many overlook: the pride of doing a job properly, and the responsibility to leave something better than they found it.
What started as a quiet conversation in a busy bar became the spark that would reinvent a tool the industry had simply learned to live with.
Three years ago, Alex and Rich were standing at a bar after work, unwinding like thousands of tradespeople do every week.
Alex, a contractor who had spent years installing gutter brackets on live sites, leaned over and said the words that started everything:
Rich, I’ve got an idea. A proper one.
He explained the problem he’d been wrestling with for years — the daily grind of installing traditional rise & fall brackets after the brickwork was complete. The hammering. The cracking. The wasted time. The constant fear of damaging the wall and being blamed for frost damage months later. The frustration of a job that never felt clean, safe, or efficient.
And he said the thing no one else had dared to say aloud:
It needs a thread. Something you can drill and fix properly. No hammering. No damage.
Rich, who had run a construction company for over two decades, didn’t laugh it off.
He didn’t brush it aside.
He knew Alex was right. Completely right.
For the first time, someone wasn’t just complaining about the problem — someone was talking about solving it.
And that was all it took.
Within a week, Alex turned an idea into something real. He created a rough prototype in his garage, (an old stake with a screw miter bonded to the end along with plenty of grey tape! It was rough! But gave him the idea of what it could turkey look like and also gave them something physical to take to a patent designer.
When he showed it to Rich, something clicked immediately.
This wasn’t a minor tweak. This was the beginning of a full redesign.
Rich took Alex’s prototype and pushed it further. He added the 70mm elongated adjustment slot, the feature that would later become central to the Surefix advantage. And he got a proper design created. No glue and tape in sight.
They sketched out a custom setting tool so installers could use their drill instead of a hammer along with a depth stop drill bit to pair with their new invention. He made the design not just workable — but exceptional.
An engineering company created the next version of the prototype.
The moment the first installed the bracket they knew this was a game changer.
Alex and Rich didn’t hide in an office designing products in isolation. They took their invention directly to site, and put the Surefix bracket head-to-head against the traditional stake.
A full time-and-motion study followed. The old bracket took over two hours to install on a four-bed plot. The Surefix bracket took just 45 minutes.
For the first time ever, installers could fit a bracket the right way, cleanly, safely, consistently.
The results weren’t just promising. They were undeniable.
They then got more brackets made and started handing the out to mates also in the building industry for further testing and feedback.
Pushing the design further
Seeing the results on site only pushed the founders harder. They refined the bracket again and again, strengthening the thread, adjusting the slot, optimising the setting tool, and developing the depth-stop drill bit to eliminate over-drilling and guarantee repeatability.
Every test raised the bar. Every adjustment made it better. Every failure turned into its next improvement.
When certification became the next step, Surefix didn’t cut corners. They put the bracket through independent pull-out and downward load testing, confirming performance that far surpassed traditional brackets and met the requirements of BS 8539:2012.
The engineering was strong. The data was stronger. And the industry started paying attention.
Three years. Two patents. One mission.
Patents aren’t easy, fast, or guaranteed — but Alex and Rich pushed through the full UK and European process, determined to protect their idea and bring it to market responsibly. They secured:
Not because they were chasing recognition, but because they believed the industry deserved a bracket that finally solved the problems installers had lived with for generations.
From a sketch to nationwide adoption
It didn’t take long for the industry to recognise the difference. Surefix is now:
And the range continues to grow — from the screw-in adjustable stake to the build-in option, from deep-flow cups to half-round cups, from specialised drill bits to complete installation kits.
What started as a garage-built idea has become a full engineering-led product line.
Why they created it — the real story
Surefix wasn’t built for awards, attention, or commercial opportunity. It was built because two tradesmen — who genuinely cared about the quality of their work — were tired of watching the industry struggle with a tool that belonged in the past.
Alex was tired of apologising for cracked brickwork caused by a bad system. Rich was tired of seeing installers forced to use methods that slowed them down and put them at risk.
They didn’t want to patch the old system. They wanted to replace it. And they wanted to give every builder, roofer, contractor, and homeowner a solution that would last for decades.
Surefix is more than a bracket. It’s proof that the construction industry deserves innovation just as much as any other sector.
The founders’ mission is simple:
To make Surefix the industry standard for both traditional builds and the modular homes of tomorrow.
Because buildings evolve. Systems evolve. Construction evolves. And now, finally, the rise & fall bracket has evolved too.
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