Home Renovation Borehamwood

A whole house renovation or refurbishment is a sequencing problem before it is a decorating one: structure first, then services, then finishes. GS Renovation runs the lot with one point of contact, from strip out to final decoration. We appoint the structural engineer for any structural element and coordinate the building control applications and inspections.

For Borehamwood, on London-derived ranges a full house refurbishment typically costs £40,000 to £150,000 or more; Hertfordshire work generally runs below that. GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Borehamwood: we carry the structure, services and finishes as one contract.

The two rooms that cost the most have their own pages, with prices: kitchen renovation in Borehamwood and bathroom renovation in Borehamwood. In the 63% of homes here that are houses, moving the kitchen usually means opening up the back of the ground floor, which is structural work.

Borehamwood's housing and how it is held

Borehamwood is divided into four wards, Brookmeadow, Cowley Hill, Hillside and Kenilworth, and the 2021 Census recorded 14,197 households across them. Hertsmere's Core Strategy describes Borehamwood as the borough's principal town. Of those households, 3,973 were social rented, of which 474 rent from the council and 3,499 from other social landlords.

Tenure decides who can commission what. A social rented home is the landlord's to alter, so a renovation brief there begins with their consent rather than with a survey. Where you own the house the decisions are yours, and the constraints are the building fabric and the Building Regulations. We are clear about which of the two we are quoting for before any programme is drawn up.

Housing in Borehamwood

The stock in Borehamwood runs to roughly 15,090 dwellings, 36% of them flats and 63% houses, built 2% before 1919, 8% between 1919 and 1939 and 90% after 1945. 38% of homes here are terraced; a mid-terrace in Borehamwood has no side access, so strip-out goes through the hall.

Garage conversions Hertsmere expects to approve

Hertsmere names Borehamwood streets in its own guidance. Shakespeare Drive, Wordsworth Gardens and Coleridge Way, on the former Fire Research Station and Furzehill School sites, are named as places where garages are smaller than current standards allow, as is the Studio Way development. Hertsmere states it will generally look favourably on applications to convert garages into habitable rooms on those developments, subject to its guidance being followed.

The test is dimensions. A garage is treated as too small to park a car if its internal width is under 3 metres, a requirement applied since 2006, or its opening width is under 2.5 metres, applied since 2012. Hertsmere expects internal dimensions of at least 3 by 4.8 metres before a garage counts towards off street parking. Where a garage is too narrow, there is a general presumption in favour of converting it.

Checking the restrictions, and where the forms go

Ask Hertsmere in writing, for nothing. Hertsmere offers a free written check on whether a planning condition restricts your garage to parking use, and states it will reply within 10 working days. The guidance itself, Appendix A to Planning and Design Guide Part E, was adopted on 28 January 2015, so it is a settled position rather than a recent change.

The council is close at hand. Hertsmere's Civic Offices are at Elstree Way, Borehamwood WD6 1WA, so the planning authority sits inside the town it serves, and the main telephone number is 020 8207 2277. Planning application forms can be emailed to admin.planning@hertsmere.gov.uk or delivered as a single paper copy to the Civic Offices. Your architect or designer makes that submission, and we build to the approved drawings.

Building control, and the plan Hertsmere is rewriting

Building control is not the council office. Hertfordshire Building Control describes itself as a not for profit organisation that returns all profit to Hertfordshire local councils and their residents. On a renovation it is the body that inspects any structural element, and we coordinate the application and the visits so the programme is not held up waiting on a slot.

Policy is moving in the background. Hertsmere ran a Regulation 18 consultation on its Draft Local Plan 2026 between 16 April and 29 May 2026, and is now preparing the Regulation 19 version. A renovation that stays inside the existing shell is largely untouched by that. One that adds floor area is judged against whatever policy is current when the application is determined, which is worth knowing if your project is phased.

• Kitchen and bathroom design, supply and installation
• Staircase repair, replacement and balustrade work
• Damp treatment, tanking and timber repairs

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Borehamwood Cowley Hill, Borehamwood Brookmeadow, Borehamwood Kenilworth and Borehamwood Hillside. Counts rounded by the VOA.

If this is your first project in Borehamwood, these are worth a look: load-bearing wall removal in Borehamwood, home renovation in Radlett, design and build contracting, how we run a London renovation, home renovation anywhere in London and Renovation Order of Works.

The GS Renovation Difference in Borehamwood

Borehamwood is about 4 miles from our base in Potters Bar, so this is core service area rather than a job we travel for, and a site visit does not carry half a day of driving with it. On a whole house programme that shows up as responsiveness. One point of contact, fully insured, free no obligation quotations, rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder.

• Notifiable electrical work certified by a registered electrician under Part P
• A written scope and programme agreed before work starts
• Room by room handover so you can move back in stages

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254). Structural design is by the consulting engineer appointed to your project.