Our work

Structural repair · occupied home

Failed lintel replacement

A failed lintel over a ground-floor window, replaced with the household still living in the property. Temporary works installed first — acrow props and needles taking the load before a single brick came out — then the lintel replaced and the brickwork rebuilt and pointed to match.

The finished repair reads as part of the original wall rather than a patch, which matters when the same elevation has to pass a stock condition survey later.

Roofing · building fabric

Gable verge and bargeboard renewal

Decayed timber bargeboard and a failed mortar verge, letting water track behind the slates and into the gable. Stripped back, the timber renewed, and a new capping fitted with the slate verge re-set to a clean line.

A maintenance-free detail replacing one that needed re-bedding every few years — the kind of change that takes a property off the reactive repairs list.

External works · social housing estate

Front boundary wall rebuild

Failed front boundary walls taken down to footing level and rebuilt across a residential street — new piers, contrasting header banding and precast copings, levelled to a consistent line along an uneven frontage.

Work like this happens on a live footway with people walking past all day. Pedestrian barriers went up before the first brick came off, materials were kept off the pavement, and each frontage was finished and cleared before the next one started, so no household lost access to their own front door for longer than a day.

Roofing · leadwork repair

Hip leadwork renewal

A hip where the lead soakers had perished and the joint had opened along its full length. From the ground it looks like nothing; from the scaffold you can see daylight into the roof space.

Stripped back, a new treated batten set out to line, and the slates and lead re-laid to close it up. This is the kind of defect that shows up inside as a stain on a bedroom ceiling six months later, and gets misdiagnosed as condensation.

Roofing · repairs & ventilation

Slate replacement and roof ventilation

Cracked and slipped slates replaced across a slope and a slate vent installed near the ridge to get air moving through the roof space.

The new slates read lighter than the originals for now — that's what a repair looks like on a hundred-year-old roof, and they'll weather back. The vent matters more than it looks: a large share of the damp we're called out to turns out to be roof-space condensation rather than water coming in.

Roofing · detail

Hip line converted from mortar-bedded to dry fix

Failed mortar bedding stripped off the hip and a dry-fix hip system installed in its place — batten set along the hip line, ready for the hip tiles to be mechanically fixed rather than bedded.

Mortar-bedded hips have a limited life. The bedding shrinks and cracks, the hip tiles work loose, and once they start moving on a slate roof you get water tracking in and slates being dislodged below. A dry-fix hip is mechanically fixed and ventilated, so it does not rely on mortar to hold it down and does not need re-bedding every few years.

Roofing · occupied home

Full re-roof over a home in use

Old covering and battens stripped off, a breather membrane laid, fully re-battened and re-slated, with new soakers and stepped flashing dressed into the stack.

The first photograph is the one worth looking at. That's somebody's loft, full of their things, with nothing between it and the sky. Roofs like this get stripped in sections and closed up again rather than opened all at once, because the household has to live underneath it while the work runs.

Building fabric · repointing

Elevation repointing

Eroded and cracked joints raked out and repointed across a full elevation, worked off a scaffold with the joint profile and mortar matched to what was already there.

Repointing is one of those jobs where the difference between good and bad shows up years later. Too hard a mix and the brick face spalls off instead of the mortar; wrong profile and the joint holds water. Done properly it just looks like the wall always did — which is the point.

Roofing · shared entrance canopies

Entrance canopy renewal

A shared entrance canopy that had reached the end of its life — slipped and cracked slates, a sagging eaves line and one bracket already propped with a length of timber. Stripped back to the rafters, which showed exactly why it was moving.

New timbers, new brackets, re-slated with fresh lead flashing to the wall, and the fascia made good and painted. Both households kept their front door in use throughout: mobile tower access, up in the morning, down at the end of the day.

External fabric · occupied home

Render renewal and external redecoration

Failed render stripped back to the substrate, made good and re-rendered, then the whole elevation redecorated with the brickwork below picked out separately. Windows and openings masked properly before a trowel went near them.

An elevation like this is the first thing a housing officer sees on a stock inspection, and the first thing a resident sees every day. It's worth getting the cutting-in right.

Roofing · full renewal

Slate re-roof, chimney and leadwork

A full natural slate re-roof with the chimney stack rebuilt at the same time — new stepped flashings and soakers, re-flaunched, new pot and cowl. The bay roof re-slated with a decorative scalloped course and fresh lead rolls.

Doing the stack while the scaffold is already up is the difference between one job and two. The safety rail system stays behind so the next person up there can work safely.

Voids · internal refurbishment

Void refurbishment: plastering and joinery

A property stripped back and brought up to lettable standard — replastered throughout, new door linings, architrave and doorsets hung, then decorated and the heating renewed ready to let.

Void work is a race against the relet date with a quality floor underneath it. Plaster has to be flat and dry before decoration, or the new tenant is raising a repair inside a fortnight.

Responsive repair · roofing

Water ingress at a roof penetration

A reported leak traced to the soil vent pipe penetration — broken tiles and no effective weathering where the pipe passed through the covering. Tiles numbered and lifted, a proper flashing collar fitted, and the covering made good around it.

Photographed at every stage, which is how the repair gets evidenced on the job file rather than described in an email.

Building safety · occupied high-rise

External wall works to an occupied block

Rainscreen panels taken off a multi-storey block to get at what was behind them. The insulation was in place but the membrane had perished and the detailing behind the panel line had not weathered as it should. New breather membrane fixed back across the opened-up areas, the undercroft soffit made good, and the elevation closed up again.

Every resident stayed in their flat throughout. That means the elevation comes off in sections rather than all at once, the building is left weathertight at the end of each day, and the undercroft — which is how people reach their own front doors — never closes. The photographs are the record: what was found, what was done about it, what it looked like when we left.

Roofing · stone-built property

Entrance canopy rebuild

The brackets had gone soft, the render around them had cracked away, and the whole canopy was moving on a door that gets used every day. Stripped back, a new timber carcass built up on site to the original profile, then re-slated and the stonework made good around it.

A canopy is the one piece of building fabric a resident passes underneath twice a day. It gets noticed. Tower access went up in the morning and came down at night so the front door was never out of use.

Building fabric · planned renewal

Fascia, soffit and rainwater goods renewal

Painted timber that had been repainted one time too many — blackened, split, and no longer holding a fixing. Stripped off to expose the rafter feet, the timber made good where it needed it, then capped with new fascia and soffit and hung with new gutters, hoppers and downpipes.

This is the least glamorous item on any planned programme and one of the highest-value. Failed eaves put water into the wall head, and water in the wall head is what turns up eighteen months later as a damp and mould case with a resident's name on it.

Roofing · flat roof renewal

Torch-on felt renewal to a rear outrigger

An old covering that had been patched more times than anyone could count, blistered along the laps and holding water in the middle of the roof. Stripped off and re-laid in torch-on felt, with the upstands dressed properly into the brickwork on both sides.

Patching a flat roof buys a winter. The falls are the thing worth getting right — standing water is what finishes a covering off, and it is the part a repair never fixes.

External works · boundary treatment

Boundary wall and driveway entrance

A dwarf boundary wall that had lost its line entirely — stepped, cracked and leaning out over the footway. Taken down, rebuilt off the footing, and finished with a new pier and precast copings squaring up the driveway entrance.

Walls like this are the first thing anyone sees from the street, and the first thing a stock condition survey picks up. Setting the new pier to a proper line matters more than the brick you build it in.

Responsive repair · external works

Void beneath a footway

Reported as a cracked flag. Lifted, and there was nothing underneath it — a void that had washed out below the paving, with a buried service running through it. Opened up, measured and recorded before anything was put back, then backfilled, compacted and the paving relaid to a level line.

Barriers and a pedestrian diversion went in before the first flag came up, and the footway stayed open past the works the whole time. A trip hazard on a housing estate is a claim waiting to happen; the measurement shot is what evidences that it was dealt with properly rather than covered over.

External works · fencing & gates

Fencing and gates renewal

Close-board fencing on concrete posts and gravel boards, set to a line along a frontage that steps down with the pavement, and braced timber gates hung to the side and rear accesses.

Concrete posts and gravel boards rather than timber into the ground, because the failure point on a fence is always where the timber meets the soil. The gate is what the household actually uses — if it drops on its hinges in a year, nothing else about the job matters to them.

Joinery · internal renewal

Internal doorset renewal

Doors hung on new linings through a property — each leaf prepared and cut in on site, ironmongery fitted, and the doorset hung to close cleanly against the stop rather than being forced to fit an opening that has moved over eighty years.

The unglamorous detail is the gap. A door that catches on the frame, or swings open on its own, generates a repair call within a month of the property being let. It is quicker to get it right on the first hanging.

Roofing · strip and re-cover

Slate slope stripped and re-covered

Covering stripped back, the roof re-felted with a breather membrane and fully battened out, then re-covered and the chimney flashed back in.

A strip and re-cover is the point at which you find out what is actually under a roof. Battens that have gone soft, nail sickness, a rafter that has been wet for years — none of it shows from the ground. Photographing it open is what lets a client see what they paid for once the covering is back on and everything is hidden again.

Roofing · flat roof renewal

Flat roof taken back to the joists

Worn covering and failed deck removed, new timber decking laid across the joists, then a new felt covering laid and dressed up the parapet upstand.

Patching a flat roof that has already been patched buys months, not years. Where the deck itself has gone there is no covering that will sit flat on it, so the deck comes off and goes back new. The upstand detail at the parapet is where most flat roofs actually fail, which is why it is worth seeing it dressed properly rather than taking it on trust.

Roofing · bay window roofs

Bay window roofs renewed across a run of properties

Perished coverings stripped from bay window roofs, timber made good where needed, and new coverings laid with fresh edge trim and the rainwater outlet reconnected.

Bay roofs are small, awkward and easy to leave off a programme, and they are a common source of water getting into a front room. Doing them as a run across several properties rather than one at a time keeps the access cost down and gets the whole terrace done in one visit.