Property Maintenance in Horley (RH6)
Horley's newer estates are reaching the age where the houses need maintaining rather than mending. What goes wrong on a modern house is different to what goes wrong on a Victorian one, and it is usually smaller, cheaper and much easier to ignore.
What actually needs doing on a house built in the 1990s or 2000s
Modern construction depends on a handful of details with a shorter life than the house itself.
Sealant is the obvious one: the mastic around windows, doors and abutments perishes, shrinks back and splits, and once it has gone water gets into a joint never designed to be wet. Plastic rainwater goods are next — clips let go, brackets work loose, and long runs sag between fixings until the fall is wrong and the gutter holds water. Then there are the weep holes and cavity trays above openings, which are what get rainwater back out of a cavity wall, and which fill with mortar, paint or debris more often than anyone expects. None of it is expensive to put right. All of it is expensive to leave, because the damage turns up inside as a damp patch beside a window, which is easily mistaken for a plastering problem.
Estate homes, and getting a straight price
Houses around Langshott, The Acres and the newer developments towards Gatwick are well past the point where a builder's warranty covers anything, so the upkeep is now the owner's to organise. The useful thing about houses of this age is that they are consistent: the same details do the same thing on the same elevations, so a proper walk round finds most of the list in one visit. Thin-coat and modern renders crack in predictable places, timber and composite trims need their fixings and finish checked, and the paths, drives and drainage gullies around a newer plot need clearing before they silt up. We put it in writing as a list with a price against each item, rather than as one figure you cannot argue with.
The older streets nearer the centre
Horley also has 1930s streets nearer the town centre, and those houses bring the older list: pointing, external timber, guttering, and ground levels that have crept up over the years.
It is worth being clear that the two kinds of house need different diagnosis rather than simply different materials, so a firm used to only one of them will misread the other. Either way the outcome is the same: a walk round the outside, a written list, and a price against every item on it.
More in Horley
Everything we do in Horley is on the Horley area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the building maintenance page.
Common questions
Q.01My house is only twenty years old. Why does it need work?
Because the parts with the shortest life are already at the end of it. Sealant, gutter fixings and external finishes come due long before anything structural does, and they are what let water in when they fail.
Q.02There is damp beside my window. Is that a plastering job?
Almost never. On a modern house it is usually failed sealant, a blocked weep hole or a problem with the cavity tray above the opening, and replastering without dealing with that simply repeats.
Q.03Do you work on the newer estates as well as the older streets?
Yes, both. They need different diagnosis rather than different effort, and we would rather look at the house than assume anything from the address.
Q.04How do you price maintenance work?
As a written list with a price against each item after a free site survey, so you can see what each job costs and choose what to do now. Ring 01883 337 700 to arrange a visit.
Q.05Is it your own men, or subcontractors?
The general building work — brickwork repairs, carpentry, plastering, groundworks and making good — is SG's own team. Electrics, roofing and decorating are specialist trades: we bring those in, run them on site and stay answerable for what they leave behind.
Thinking about building maintenance in Horley?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.