A whole house renovation runs across trades and across consents at the same time. Harpenden's stock is a product of the railway era and the estate sales that followed it, and the older core sits inside a conservation area with its own character statement. We are a contractor. We coordinate the trades, appoint a structural engineer where the work is structural, and coordinate the building control application and inspections.
Why the Harpenden stock is what it is
The town grew with the railways and with the estate sales that followed them. The Great Northern Railway built its Kings Cross to Dunstable line through the area in 1860, and the Midland main line reached Harpenden in 1868. A branch line to Hemel Hempstead, which the council spells the Nicky Line, closed to passenger traffic in 1947. It carried goods until the 1970s before its track bed became a cycle path.
The council's character statement records that the sale of the Pym and Packe Estate, later known as the St Nicholas Estate, took place in 1882. It records that this sale, together with Church Farm, Manland Common and Cooters End Farm, made possible the railway based suburban growth that gave Harpenden its present character. Renovating a house from that growth means working with the construction of its period, which is why we survey before pricing rather than after.
The conservation area and its identity areas
Harpenden Conservation Area was designated on 24 March 1969, and the council's character statement records that it was subsequently extended in 1983, in 1993 and in 1999. The April 2008 character statement divides the area into identity areas lettered A to O. The identity areas map shows nineteen labels, because areas C, E, I and L are each split in two, while the written sections describe eighteen, treating L as a single area. Southdown is identity area O.
For a renovation that matters. External decisions, meaning windows, doors, roof coverings and rainwater goods, are judged against the character of the identity area your house sits in. Internal work is a separate question with a separate route. We establish which side of that line each part of your scheme falls on before the programme is set.
What is under the house
The bedrock beneath Harpenden is mapped by the British Geological Survey as the Lewes Nodular Chalk Formation and Seaford Chalk Formation, undifferentiated, part of the White Chalk Subgroup of the Chalk Group. On the higher ground west and south west, at the Avenues, the Rothamsted estate and Hatching Green, the mapped superficial deposit is the Clay-with-flints Formation, described as clay, silt, sand and gravel. It is the most widespread superficial deposit across the town. If your renovation includes underpinning, a new opening carried to the ground or an extension, that difference becomes a design question for the engineer we appoint.
What the Harpenden housing stock is now
Census 2021 recorded 11,757 households across the four Harpenden middle layer super output areas. Of those, 4,560 were in detached houses or bungalows, a share of 38.8 per cent against 22.9 per cent for England as a whole. A detached house gives you more scope to reconfigure without touching a party wall, and more external envelope to insulate, reroof and redecorate. Both of those move the price, and we set them out line by line in the quotation rather than as one figure.
- Kitchen and bathroom design, supply and installation
- Full and partial rewiring, certified under Part P
- Planning permission and building control coordination
- Sash window overhaul, draught proofing and secondary glazing
- Loft, floor and wall insulation upgrades
The GS Renovation Difference in Harpenden
Harpenden is about eleven miles from our base in Potters Bar and sits inside the area we cover, so a renovation here does not have to be a large structural project for us to take it on. A full house renovation needs one person holding the programme, the trades and the paperwork together, and that is what you get. Our founder has over 30 years of hands on experience. We are fully insured, registered in England, company number 14611254, and rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder. Quotations are free and carry no obligation.
- Aftercare and snagging support once the job is finished
- Rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder
- Site left safe and secure at the end of every day
- First fix and second fix planned around a realistic decorating date
- Original features protected, repaired or reinstated as you want
- Dust screens and floor protection in occupied homes