Renovations & Refurbishments in Kenilworth, priced in writing before anything starts.
Renovation in Kenilworth means one of two quite different buildings, and it is worth being clear which you have before anything is planned.
The Victorian and Edwardian villas around Avenue Road are generously built. Solid walls or early cavities, good ceiling heights, substantial joinery and bay windows that are frequently the most characterful and the most neglected part of the house. Bays are worth attention: they are structurally the weakest point of the elevation, they carry a roof of their own, and a bay that has dropped is usually telling you about its foundation rather than its window.
Original joinery on these houses is better than most of what could replace it, and inside the conservation area the frontage is controlled. We repair sashes and casements where they can be repaired rather than defaulting to replacement, because on this stock replacement is often both the more expensive answer and the one the council likes least.
At the castle end the buildings are older and smaller, and the usual older building rules apply: lime rather than cement, breathability rather than sealing, and opening up before committing to a layout.
Structural alterations are inspected under the Building Regulations and we arrange and meet those inspections through to sign off. There is more about how we phase this work 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 Warwick District 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 Kenilworth street to the next.
A full strip out generates more waste than any other job. On a villa plot the skip goes on the drive and the job runs simply. At the castle end it means a carriageway licence from the county five working days ahead, or bagged removal through the building.
Where a house is in the conservation area we photograph the frontage before anything is disturbed. It costs a few minutes and it settles arguments about what was there originally, which on Victorian joinery come up more often than you would expect.
Fireplaces are worth a word on this stock. A great many were blocked up in the 1960s and 1970s and the flues left unventilated, which is how you get damp patches on a chimney breast decades later. If a fireplace is being reinstated the flue needs lining and testing properly, and if it is staying blocked it needs a vent. Both are straightforward. Neither is optional.
Part of our wider building work in Kenilworth.
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.
