House Refurbishment Bromley

House refurbishment in Bromley means renewing the whole fabric of a house you own freehold: wiring, pipework, heating, plaster, floors, joinery, windows and decoration, keeping the layout as it is. Houses make up 67% of the borough's homes, 23% terraced and 38% semi-detached or detached. The age spread is wide, with 17% built before 1919, 30% between the wars and 53% after 1945, so the same brief meets very different walls, floors and services from one street to the next.

For Bromley, 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 Bromley: 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 the walls hide in Bromley's older and interwar houses

The fabric depends on the age band, and Bromley has all three in quantity. In the 17% of homes built before 1919 you meet lath and plaster ceilings, soft lime mortar, suspended timber floors and chimney breasts that have been part removed at some point. Lime walls want breathable repairs; sealing them with gypsum and plastic paint traps damp. We check the ceilings and the chimney supports before any pricing of finishes.

The 30% built between 1919 and 1939 in Bromley are a different job. Interwar semis often have sound brickwork but tired services: rubber or early PVC wiring, lead or galvanised pipework in places, and back boilers long gone but flues left open. Post-war houses built before 2000 have their own quirks, from asbestos in artex and floor tiles to thin partitions. We have suspect materials sampled and tested before stripping out, so the programme does not stop halfway.

Housing in Bromley

Bromley counts roughly 143,450 homes for Council Tax; 17% are older than 1919, 30% interwar and 53% post-war, with 33% flats and 67% houses. A semi in Bromley has a single party wall, so one neighbour hears the chasing, and 24% of homes here are semi-detached.

Render, dormers and roofs on a Bromley house in a conservation area

The outside of the house is where a refurbishment in Bromley can meet planning control. The council states that there are 47 conservation areas in the borough, and in some of them an Article 4 Direction takes away rights a householder would otherwise have. In the Chancery Lane Conservation Area in Beckenham, rendering or cladding brickwork and inserting or altering a dormer are brought under planning control, except where the work affects the rear of the building. External wall insulation on a front elevation there is therefore a planning question first.

Roofs are the other pinch point. In the Chislehurst Road Conservation Area, an Article 4 Direction removing Part 1, Class C roof alteration rights came into effect on 19 July 2022, so roof alterations such as new rooflights need planning permission before the scaffold goes up. Bromley says it cannot advise informally on whether a proposal is permitted development, so your designer confirms the position in writing before we order slates, windows or doors.

Scaffold and shared chimney stacks on a Bromley house

Roof, gutter and chimney repairs are where a Bromley house refurbishment reaches the street. Slates, valleys, lead flashings and stack repairs need a scaffold, and a scaffold that stands on the pavement needs a Bromley scaffolding licence, with a fee that varies with the linear length of the scaffold. We keep the run to the elevations the survey says need work, and a scaffold standing wholly on your own drive or front garden needs no highway licence. Roof work is booked for the drier months where the programme allows, so the house is not open to the weather while the strip-out runs below.

On a terrace or semi the chimney stack is often shared with the house next door. Repairing or rebuilding a shared stack, or cutting into the party wall for new joist bearings or a damp proof course, needs a party wall notice. Bromley's party wall guidance says notice must be served at least two months before work to a party wall. The building owner serves it, and the work proceeds on the neighbour's written consent or an award. Minor like-for-like repairs such as repointing or new flashings are generally outside the Act, so the survey sorts the stack work into those two groups early.

Building control notices for a whole Bromley house

Much of a house refurbishment in Bromley is notifiable work, and the notice has to be in before the tools come out. A building notice, which is less detailed than full plans, must be deposited at least two days before work starts. Bromley does not approve the plans that go with a building notice, but it does inspect the work on site. That suits work such as a renewed roof covering or new insulated floors, where the detail is settled on site. Renewing those elements brings Part L into play, so the insulation goes in at the same time. A rewire and a new boiler are notified separately, by the registered electrician and the registered gas engineer who carry them out.

The person doing the work must tell Bromley Council when each stage is reached, and the council lists those stages in its acknowledgement letter. We keep them in the programme, so the inspector sees the drains or the insulation before they are covered. At the end, a Notice of Completion goes in with the request for a completion inspection; without it Bromley cannot issue a Completion Certificate, which a buyer's solicitor will ask for on a pre-sale or probate job.

• Staircase repairs: treads, risers, strings, balusters and newel posts
• Loft insulation topped up while the tank space is cleared
• Lime plastering on solid walls and lath and plaster ceiling repairs

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 39 statistical areas in Bromley. Counts rounded by the VOA.

When comparing house refurbishment in Bromley with other work, it helps to read home renovation in Bromley, our Bromley area guide, a building contractor for a whole-house refurbishment, a snagging list before a refurbished house is handed back, our London house refurbishment page and Signs You Need to Rewire.

Why Choose GS Renovation in Bromley

A whole-house refurbishment runs on sequence: strip-out, first fix, plaster, second fix, then joinery and decoration, with every trade waiting on the one before. We run all of it on one programme with one point of contact, so you are not coordinating plumbers, electricians and plasterers yourself. The founder walks the house before pricing to open up the questions that change the scope. A registered electrician certifies the rewiring, an engineer on the Gas Safe Register does the gas work, and you receive the building control paperwork at handover.

• Every wall of the house tapped and every circuit tested before the refurbishment is priced
• Empty and inherited houses secured and reported on while you are away
• Free follow-up visit after completion if anything needs attention

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