Oxted — Carpentry & Joinery

Carpenter and Joiner in Oxted (RH8)

Oxted's town-centre stock runs from before 1900 through to the 1920s, and in a house of that age the staircase has had a century of use. It is usually the most worn piece of joinery in the building, and it is also the piece most often repairable rather than replaceable.

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Repairing a stair rather than replacing it

Most complaints about an old staircase come down to a handful of causes: treads worn hollow, wedges and glue blocks that have dried out and dropped, a newel post that has worked loose at its base, or nosings that have split away. None of those needs a new staircase. Treads can be repaired or replaced individually, blocks and wedges renewed from underneath where there is access, and a loose newel re-fixed properly rather than packed and hoped for. Creaking is nearly always movement between tread and riser, and it is fixable. Which of those causes is at work only becomes clear once somebody has been underneath the flight rather than looked at it from the hall.

Balustrades, and what changes when you alter a stair

Handrails and spindles look like the simplest part of a stair to change, and they are the part where the rules bite. Once a balustrade is replaced you are working to current requirements on height and on the gaps between spindles rather than to whatever was there before, and on an older staircase the existing gaps are frequently wider than that allows. It is a solvable problem. Extra spindles, a different pattern, or a handrail height set off the pitch line will all get there, but it is worth knowing at the start because it affects the look as well as the cost. The same applies to a landing balustrade, which is often the run that fails the check first.

The larger houses out towards the Downs

Away from the centre the houses get bigger and so does what a room will take.

The larger and more rural properties nearer the North Downs have the space for built-in work made for one specific room: a run of fitted wardrobes down a long bedroom wall, a boot and coat store by the back door that takes the traffic, shelving and a desk built into a study, a window seat where a deep reveal allows one. All of it is measured, made and fitted to the room it belongs in, which is the only way anything reads as part of the house rather than as furniture that arrived. It also means the job is priced off real dimensions rather than a catalogue size, so there is nothing to renegotiate when the fitting starts.

More in Oxted

Everything we do in Oxted is on the Oxted area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the carpentry & joinery page.

Common questions

Q.01Can our creaking stairs be fixed without replacing them?

Nearly always. Creaks come from movement between treads and risers and from dried-out wedges and glue blocks, and all of that can be renewed. Full replacement is only the answer when the timber or the geometry has genuinely gone.

Q.02Do you use subcontractors?

For the timber, no. Carpentry is one of SG's own trades, so the joiner who surveys the stair is the one repairing it. For decorating afterwards or an electrical alteration, yes: those are specialists, and we bring them in, run them and answer for their work as well as our own.

Q.03We want to swap the spindles. Is that straightforward?

The joinery is, but changing a balustrade brings it under current rules on height and spacing, which older stairs often do not meet. We check that at the survey so the design allows for it from the start.

Q.04Can you make a piece to fit an odd space?

That is most of what bespoke joinery is. A window seat, a study fit-out or a wardrobe under a slope is made to measurements taken in the room, so it fits the space you have rather than the nearest standard size.

Q.05Do you work on period properties in the town centre?

Yes. On an older Oxted house the approach is repair first and match second, keeping original timber where it is sound and matching the profile where it is not.