Property Maintenance in Warlingham (CR6)
Warlingham is a village of two halves, and the outside walls tell you which half you are standing in. Near the centre there is brick and render on older cottages that has to be matched rather than replaced. Out towards the edges, larger family houses with wall finishes of a different age and different failings.
Render that has started to let go
Render fails quietly. It cracks first, then water gets in behind it, and the section that has lost its grip sounds hollow when you tap it long before anything falls off. Patching over the top of that achieves nothing, because the new material is stuck to something that is already off the wall. The repair is to cut back to sound render, key the substrate, and build the patch up in coats matching the thickness and texture of what surrounds it. On an older cottage there is a further question of what the render is made of: an old lime-based render on soft brick behaves differently to a modern cement one, and putting a hard patch into a soft wall gives you a crack around the edge of your repair within a couple of winters. Worth establishing which you have before anybody mixes anything. The render and plastering is our own team's work; where a repair runs into roofing or decorating, those are specialist trades we bring in and manage ourselves.
Brickwork and pointing that has to match
Where brick is exposed, two things give a repair away: the mortar and the joint. A patch of new pointing in the wrong colour and the wrong profile is visible from the pavement for the next thirty years, and on a street where the character of the buildings is the point, that matters. Matching means getting the sand right, the mix right and the finish of the joint right, and raking out to a proper depth rather than skimming a thin layer of new mortar over the face of the old. Cut-and-piece brick repairs work the same way, with the replacement sitting back where the original did rather than proud of it.
The larger houses towards the edges
The bigger detached and semi-detached family homes away from the centre bring a different list.
Later wall finishes crack in their own patterns, external timber and its fixings need checking, and where a garage, porch or later addition meets the original house, that joint is where water tends to find a way in. None of it is dramatic. What it does need is somebody to go round the outside properly, write down what is actually wrong rather than what is obvious from the drive, and price it as a list you can work through in whatever order suits. General building work on a house like this is mostly a matter of catching things while they are still small.
More in Warlingham
Everything we do in Warlingham is on the Warlingham area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the building maintenance page.
Common questions
Q.01How do I know whether my render needs patching or replacing?
Tap it. Render that has lost its bond sounds hollow, and a hollow area will not hold a patch laid over the top. We sound the whole elevation rather than just the visible crack, because the failed area is usually larger than the mark you can see.
Q.02Will a repair to my cottage be noticeable?
It should not be, and that is most of the skill. Matching the mortar, the joint profile and the texture of the render is what makes a repair disappear; a quick patch in a standard mix will be visible from the road for years.
Q.03Do you do small maintenance jobs or only large work?
Both. Guttering, a length of pointing, a sticking door, a damp patch to look at — general building work comes in all sizes, and small jobs are easier to price when several are done in one visit.
Q.04How do I get a price?
Ring 01883 337 700 and ask for a visit. We come out from 27 High Street, Godstone, look at the work properly and give you a written price broken down by item, so you can decide what to do now and what can wait.
Thinking about building maintenance in Warlingham?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.