Renovations & Refurbishments in Daventry, priced in writing before anything starts.
Renovation is the trade where Daventry’s Article 4 direction causes the most surprise, so it is worth being blunt about it.
In the Daventry Town Centre Conservation Area, the Article 4(1) direction removes permitted development rights for replacing windows, painting the exterior of the property and constructing a porch. Those are three of the most common things anybody does when they smarten up an older house. If your property is in that area, repainting your own front elevation is not automatically yours to do, and new windows are a planning matter rather than a shopping decision. We check the designation before we quote anything that touches an exterior in the centre.
Behind the frontage there is far more freedom, and most of what people actually want, better layouts, better insulation, a rebuilt bathroom, sits behind it.
On the older core the construction is solid walled rather than cavity, and solid walls are the recurring conversation. Almost every energy improvement suggested for them has a moisture consequence if done without thought, and internal insulation in particular moves where the dew point sits inside the wall. We explain that once, at the start.
On the 1960s onward estate housing renovation is a different and much simpler job, and the constraints are practical rather than planning ones. Structural alterations are inspected under the Building Regulations and we arrange and meet those inspections through to sign off. More on our renovation and refurbishment page.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the West Northamptonshire Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our renovations & refurbishments page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Daventry street to the next.
A full strip out generates more waste than any other job. On the estates that means a skip on the drive and no licence. In the town centre it usually means a skip on the carriageway licensed by West Northamptonshire Council, or a bagged removal through the house. We agree which before the first room comes down.
There is a practical point about the estate housing that is easy to miss. Where a whole area went up at once, the same detail was repeated across hundreds of houses, which means the weaknesses repeat too. If a neighbour has had trouble with a flat roof over a projecting porch, or with a particular window detail, the odds are good that yours is built the same way. We ask what has already gone wrong nearby, because on this stock it is genuinely predictive.
Part of our wider building work in Daventry.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
