Renovations & Refurbishments in Kettering, priced in writing before anything starts.
Renovation in Kettering rewards working out which kind of Victorian house you are standing in before deciding what to do to it.
On the smaller artisan houses the original joinery, plaster and fittings were plain and functional, and much of it has been replaced already. The sensible approach is usually straightforward: repair what is sound, replace what is not, and spend the budget on making the house work rather than on restoring detail that was never especially fine.
On the larger houses built for the managers and owners, the opposite applies. The joinery, the staircases, the plaster mouldings and the tiling in those buildings are genuinely good, frequently better than anything that could be bought to replace them, and stripping them out is the most common way of taking value out of a Kettering house. We will tell you honestly when something is worth keeping, including when that is the inconvenient answer.
Both share the usual solid wall considerations. Almost every energy improvement suggested for a solid wall has a moisture consequence if it is done without thought, and internal insulation in particular changes where the dew point sits inside the wall.
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 kind of 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 North 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 Kettering street to the next.
A full strip out generates more waste than any other job. On a terrace that means a skip on the carriageway licensed by the council, or bagged removal through the hall, and we agree which before the first room comes down.
Asbestos is worth naming. Anything built or refitted between the 1950s and the early 1980s may contain it, most often in textured ceiling coatings and in cement sheet in outbuildings and garages. We do not disturb suspect material, we get it identified, and removal is a licensed job.
In a conservation area we photograph the frontage before anything is disturbed. On an intact Victorian street that record settles later questions about what was original far more quickly than anybody’s memory does.
Part of our wider building work in Kettering.
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.
