Renovations & Refurbishments in Nuneaton, priced in writing before anything starts.
Renovating an older Nuneaton house usually starts on the outside, because the brickwork is the best thing about these buildings and the most commonly ruined.
The damage is almost always repointing. Local brick of this age is relatively soft, and it was laid in a lime mortar deliberately softer than the brick, so that any movement or salt damage happened in the joint rather than in the masonry. Repointing in a hard cement mortar reverses that. The joint becomes stronger than the brick, and the brick faces start to spall instead. Once that has begun it does not stop, and the only real answer is to rake out the cement and repoint properly in lime, which is slower and more expensive than the job that caused the problem.
We will tell you honestly whether a wall needs repointing at all. A great deal of pointing that looks tired is doing its job perfectly well, and the most profitable thing a builder can sell you is work you did not need.
Internally these houses bring solid walls, lath and plaster and floor structures sized for the loads of the day. Solid wall insulation has a moisture consequence if done without thought, and we explain that once at the start.
In the Abbey conservation area an Article 4 direction removes rights that apply elsewhere, so external work needs checking first. 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 Nuneaton & Bedworth 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 Nuneaton street to the next.
A full strip out generates more waste than any other job. On the Victorian streets that means a skip on the carriageway under a county licence five working days ahead, or bagged removal through the hall, and we agree which before the first room comes down.
Where we are repointing, we test a sample panel and let you look at it before the whole elevation is done. Mortar colour changes as it cures and a decision made off a wet sample is a decision made twice.
One warning on brick cleaning. Soft local brick must never be abrasive blasted, because it takes the fired face off and leaves an open surface that then holds water.
Part of our wider building work in Nuneaton.
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.
