History of Bain & Irvine

Bain & Irvine was established as a partnership in 1946, when George Irvine and Jimmy Bain returned from service in World War 2.  In 1974 Andrew Millar, who was then Managing Director of a well known elite roofing contractors, bought the company with the conditions that the name of Bain & Irvine was retained. Andrew's nephew, Graeme Millar, joined the business in October 1987 after a lengthy spell working with the family roofing and building firm W J Millar & Sons of Lanark Road, Edinburgh.  

Graeme became a 5th generation roofing contractor on that date, following in the footsteps of his great, great grandfather William who was responsible for the slating work on the wonderful building that is Fettes College.  When Graeme joined the company there were only two other employees.

Bain & Irvine gradually grew in size and under their new managing partner and Andrew remained in the business until his death in 2004. From 1987 until October 2008 the business continued to grow in a calculated and manageable way with the business becoming a limited company in March 2006.

Since 2008 the recession has created a massive decrease in construction throughout the UK Bain and Irvine Ltd, utilised this period of recession, to improve their training, their commitment to Health & Safety at work and equally important to retaining the staff levels which had been vital to the company’s success.

In 2011 Alan Kerr, our qualified surveyor, joined the business and became a Director in 2014. Alan has over twenty years experience in the construction industry and is qualified as an architectural Technologist and Building Surveyor. For the past three years Alan has been working in the roofing industry and has become a member of the Institute of Roofing.

In 2014 Bain and Irvine Ltd remains one of the best roofing contractors businesses in the Edinburgh area and indeed within Scotland.

Not only have Bain and Irvine won the prestigious NFRC National Awards in 2009 for Pitched Roofing and Tiling Systems, Heritage Roofing for 2010, but have been short listed for both of these categories from 2011 until 2014.