House Refurbishment Ealing

House refurbishment in Ealing covers a borough where houses are 46% of the homes, split between 28% terraced and 16% semi-detached or detached. The stock runs from Edwardian villas and Victorian terraces to 1930s semis, and each of those has its own fabric under the paint. We renew the whole house without re-planning it: rewiring, replumbing and heating, plaster, floors, stairs, joinery and windows, then decoration. The plan suits an owner staying put, a buyer of a dated house, a landlord re-letting or an executor preparing a sale.

For Ealing, 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 Ealing: 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 pre-1919 and interwar Ealing houses hide behind the plaster

Age decides what a strip-out uncovers in Ealing. In pre-1919 buildings, which hold 28% of the borough's homes, expect lath and plaster ceilings, lime mortar and solid brick walls without a cavity, suspended timber floors and sometimes lead or iron pipework and rubber-insulated cable left from earlier work. Those walls need breathable plasters and renders if damp is not to be trapped, and a ceiling that sags once the old paper comes off may need replacing rather than patching. We open up a sample of each before the programme is fixed.

Interwar homes, 30% of the stock, were built between 1919 and 1939 and often bring early cavity walls and bay windows that have been replaced once already. Typical findings there are corroded wall ties, old fuse boards and heating pipework run through notched joists. Post-war homes, 42% of the total, bring their own list: flat roofs and, in anything built before 2000, boards or textured coatings that should be tested for asbestos before anyone sands or drills them. Where a roof, floor or wall is renewed rather than repaired, Part L sets the insulation it must then reach. Each finding goes into the schedule on its own line.

Housing in Ealing

Of the 149,900 homes the valuation list records in Ealing, 28% were built before 1919, 30% between the wars and 42% since 1945; 54% are flats and 46% are houses. Most homes here are flats, and a whole house in Ealing is refurbished as one building, roof down.

Windows, doors and roofs on an Ealing house in a conservation area

Ealing Council says the borough has 30 conservation areas and that normal permitted development rights are restricted in them, so a refurbishment that touches the outside of a house needs checking before anything is ordered. Six of those areas carry further Article 4 restrictions. In Bedford Park an Article 4 direction means planning permission is also required for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a dwelling house, which can reach replacement windows, front doors and roof coverings. In Churchfields, Half Acre Road, a direction requires permission to enlarge a house by an addition or alteration to its roof.

The practical rule on an Ealing house is to confirm the address against those designations before the sashes, doors or slates are specified. Where consent is needed, the owner or their designer applies, and we price and build to what is approved: overhauled sashes with new cords and draught seals, matched timber doors, and slates or tiles laid to the existing pattern. Where no designation applies, like-for-like repair still keeps the front of a terrace consistent with its neighbours and avoids a later dispute over appearance.

Skips, scaffolding and parking outside an Ealing house

A refurbishment in Ealing needs the street planned as carefully as the house. Only authorised skip companies can apply for an Ealing skip licence, which is valid for 14 days, and a skip cannot be placed on the pavement, so it goes in the road or on your own frontage. On a long strip-out we plan skip swaps against that licence period, or use wait-and-load collections on streets where there is no room for a skip at all, and keep waste off the front garden between collections.

Scaffolding for chimney, gutter or roof repairs on an Ealing house needs a temporary structure licence if it stands on the public highway, and the council generally does not allow hoarding to cover the whole pavement, usually leaving 1.2 metres for pedestrians. A bay suspension for a delivery lorry needs 7 working days' notice at the standard rate, or 3 working days at a higher one. We book those against the programme, so a plasterboard drop or a load of reclaimed slates arrives to a clear kerb.

Phasing an Ealing house refurbishment, lived in or empty

An empty Ealing house is the quicker job, because every room can be stripped at once and the trades follow in order: strip-out, first fix wiring and pipework, plaster, second fix, then floors and decoration. A house you are living in runs floor by floor instead, with one bathroom and a basic kitchen kept working and each work area sealed with dust screens. Rewiring and heating renewal are the hardest stages to live through, since power and hot water go off for set periods, so you get those dates in writing.

Paperwork runs alongside the works. Anyone carrying out demolition work in Ealing must notify the council under Section 80 of the Building Act 1984, which can apply when a failed rear addition or outbuilding comes down. Where Ealing is the building control body, it issues a completion certificate upon satisfactory completion on site and calls it an important document to keep in a safe place. The registered electrician's certificate and the gas engineer's Gas Safe Register records go in the same file, ready for a sale or a letting.

• Floorboard lifting, joist repairs and relaying on every floor
• Panelled doors eased and rehung, skirtings and architraves pieced in to match
• Whole-house rewires, certified at completion by a registered electrician

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 41 statistical areas in Ealing. Counts rounded by the VOA.

People planning house refurbishment in Ealing may also want home renovation in Ealing, our Ealing area guide, builders in London for house refurbishment, which parts of a house refurbishment building control inspects, how we handle house refurbishment across London and The Order of Works.

The GS Renovation Difference in Ealing

A whole-house refurbishment changes scope as the walls open, and that is where a builder's experience counts. GS Renovation's founder and director, Abdelaaziz Saaid, has more than three decades of hands-on work on houses of every age. Each Ealing job runs from a written schedule that lists what we found, what it changes and what you agreed. We coordinate the registered electrician and the engineer on the Gas Safe register, time the skip, scaffold and bay suspension to the programme, and hand over one file of certificates at the end.

• Asbestos sampling arranged before textured ceilings or old floor tiles are disturbed
• Neighbours given notice before the noisy stages
• A top-floor-first programme when your family stays in the house

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