Renovations & Refurbishments in Solihull, priced in writing before anything starts.
Renovation is the trade most affected by Solihull’s Article 4 direction, because the direction covers most householder development rather than one narrow category.
Within the affected part of the Olton Conservation Area, work that homeowners almost universally assume is theirs to decide, replacing windows, altering a porch, changing a boundary treatment, rendering an elevation, may require planning permission. The direction exists to encourage alterations that preserve or enhance the area’s historic character, and the practical effect is that external work there starts with the council rather than with a supplier. We check the designation before quoting anything that touches the outside of a building in that area.
Behind the frontage, and outside the affected areas, there is far more freedom, and most of what people want, better layouts, better insulation, a rebuilt kitchen or bathroom, sits there.
The buildings themselves are generally straightforward. Much of Solihull’s stock is interwar and post-war cavity construction, which takes alteration comfortably and responds well to insulation improvement without the moisture complications of a solid walled Victorian house.
On the older villa stock the usual considerations apply: solid or early cavity walls, substantial joinery worth repairing rather than replacing, and bay windows that are structurally the weakest point of the elevation. 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 Solihull Metropolitan Borough 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 Solihull street to the next.
A full strip out generates more waste than any other job, and on a Solihull plot the skip usually stands on your own drive, which removes both the licence and the fee and keeps the job moving.
Asbestos is worth naming on the post-war stock. Textured ceiling coatings, cement sheet in garages and outbuildings and some floor tiles may contain it. We do not disturb suspect material, we get it identified, and removal is a licensed job.
Where a property is in a conservation area we photograph the frontage before anything is disturbed, which settles later questions about what was original far more quickly than memory does.
In the affected part of Olton we photograph and record the frontage before anything is disturbed, and we check the direction itself rather than relying on what a neighbour was allowed to do, because directions like this one frequently apply to part of a conservation area rather than all of it.
Part of our wider building work in Solihull.
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.
