House Refurbishment Borough

House refurbishment in Borough is a small, specific job because whole houses are rare here. In the VOA's count for the wider Borough & Southwark Street and Southwark St George's area, 6% of homes are houses, all of them terraced, against 94% flats. Where a terrace is among the 18% of homes there built before 1919, renewing it means rewiring, replumbing and repairing solid brick, lime plaster, timber sashes and an old roof, with neighbours close on both sides. We plan the whole house as one programme, from strip out to decoration.

For Borough, published UK figures put a three-bed house refurbishment at £43,530 to £110,350, and London houses usually cost more, with a London architect allowing £1,800 to £2,200 per square metre before VAT (Checkatrade and Bradley Van Der Straeten Architects, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Borough: we renew the wiring, pipework, heating, plaster, floors and joinery of the whole house under one contract, and a registered electrician certifies the rewire.

What a Borough terrace needs when the whole house is renewed

A Borough terrace due a full refurbishment is best done with every service renewed in one programme, so no new finish is cut open later for an old pipe or cable. An older terrace here can carry original solid walls, timber floors on joists and a single run of stairs that every trade has to share. We strip the house back first, then open the floors to see the joists, the old wiring and the pipe runs before the scope is fixed. Joists that are notched, split or rotted at the wall ends are repaired or doubled while the boards are up.

The order then follows the house from the bones outwards. Strip out, then first fix for the new cables, pipes and heating, then plaster, then second fix for sockets, radiators and sanitaryware, then joinery and decoration. A registered electrician tests and certifies the rewire, and gas work is done by an engineer on the Gas Safe Register. Where you renew a wall, floor or roof element, Part L asks for it to be insulated to a reasonable standard, so we plan that into the first fix and not after the plaster has gone on.

Housing in Borough

By the valuation list's count, Borough holds about 12,140 homes, 6% houses and 94% flats; by age, 18% were built before 1919, 3% between the wars and 73% since 1945. Most homes here are flats, and a whole house in Borough is refurbished as one building, roof down.

Windows, doors and roofs on Borough houses in conservation areas

If your Borough terrace sits in a conservation area, the window and door choices are made for you in one respect: Southwark's Householder SPD says UPVC will not be permitted in any of the borough's conservation areas, even at the back. Southwark's Liberty of the Mint Conservation Area lies broadly to the west and south of Borough Tube Station. Check your address against the council's conservation area map before ordering replacement windows, because a plastic sash ordered in error cannot be fitted.

In practice, that points a house refurbishment towards repairing the original timber sashes rather than replacing them. We ease and re-cord the sashes, splice in new timber where the sills or bottom rails have rotted, fit draught seals in the beads and reglaze where the putty has failed. Roof work is repair rather than redesign: Southwark's SPD says roof extensions in a conservation area need planning permission, so a refurbishment keeps to the existing roof form, relaying slates, renewing flashings and repairing the chimney stack as the survey shows.

Running a house refurbishment on a tight Borough street

The street, not the house, often sets the pace of a Borough refurbishment. Southwark allows noisy construction work from 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 2pm on Saturdays, and none on Sundays or bank holidays. A terrace shares a party wall on each side, so the loud stages such as hacking off plaster, chasing walls for cables and lifting floors go into weekday windows. Southwark also expects excessively noisy works to run 2 hours on and 2 hours off, which we build into the daily plan.

Where a Borough terrace has no front garden big enough for a skip, the choice is a skip on the road, which needs a licence applied for 7 days before delivery, or a wait and load service for smaller loads. A parking bay suspension for deliveries needs seven days notice as well. Scaffolding over the pavement for roof, gutter or chimney repairs is licensed under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980, so the scaffolder's application goes in before the start date is fixed.

Refurbishing a Borough house to let, sell or settle an estate

A landlord letting a whole Borough house needs an EPC of E or better. Since 1 April 2020 a landlord cannot let, or continue to let, a home rated below E unless a valid exemption is registered. A whole house gives you more to work with than a flat, because the roof, walls and heating are all yours. In an old terrace, the cheap wins come while the house is stripped: loft insulation, draught proofing the sashes, a new condensing boiler with proper controls and insulation behind renewed plaster on a cold back wall.

Executors and sellers come to a Borough house refurbishment from a different angle. The house may have been empty for months, so we check for leaks, frost damage, damp and failed wiring before agreeing a scope. The aim is to deal with what a buyer's surveyor will flag, such as an old fuse board, a dated bathroom, blocked gutters or a failed damp course. The house then goes back clean and ready for photographs, without money spent on finishes the next owner will rip out.

• Lime plastering on solid walls and lath and plaster ceiling repairs
• Sash boxes overhauled with new cords, parting beads and brush seals
• Whole-house replumbing, including old lead and galvanised supply pipes

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Borough & Southwark Street and Southwark St George's. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Before committing to house refurbishment in Borough, it is worth looking at home renovation in Borough, house refurbishment across Southwark, builders in London for house refurbishment, building control on a house refurbishment, house refurbishment across London and Living In During the Work.

The GS Renovation Difference in Borough

A whole house refurbishment in a Borough terrace brings many trades through one front door and one staircase, so it needs one programme and one person answering for it. After a site visit you get a written quotation, then a written programme running from strip out to decoration, revised once the floors are up. Our own team does the strip out, joinery, plastering, kitchens, bathrooms and decoration. The registered electrician and the engineer on the Gas Safe Register work to our programme, and the founder stays your contact from survey to handover.

• A top-floor-first programme when your family stays in the house
• Every wall of the house tapped and every circuit tested before the refurbishment is priced
• Fully insured, with cover in place on every site

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254).