House Refurbishment Eltham

House refurbishment in Eltham is mainly a question of age. Houses make up 73% of homes here, and 52% of all homes were built between 1919 and 1939. So a common brief is an interwar semi or terrace whose wiring, heating, plaster and windows are due for renewal while the plan stays as it is. We strip out, renew the services and finish the house in order, whether you live in it, let it as a whole house or are preparing it for sale.

For Eltham, 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 Eltham: 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 an interwar Eltham house needs when it is renewed

An interwar Eltham house needs its services renewed before anything else. In Eltham, 52% of homes date from 1919 to 1939, and the local character is 1930s semis and Arts and Crafts estate cottages. Houses of that age were built with suspended timber ground floors, brick walls and plaster that is now nearly a century old. The rewire and heating installed in a later decade are often at the end of their life too, and the joists under the bathroom may have been notched for pipes more than once.

So the programme follows a fixed order. First the strip-out, which exposes floors, ceilings and pipe runs. Then first fix: the rewire by a registered electrician who certifies it, new heating pipework, and a boiler fitted by a gas engineer on the Gas Safe Register. Plastering follows, then second fix of sockets, radiators and joinery, and finally decoration. Floorboards lifted for cables are refixed with screws so they can come up again, and any joists found weakened are repaired before the ceilings below are boarded.

Housing in Eltham

The Council Tax list puts Eltham at about 14,360 homes, 27% flats against 73% houses; 17% went up before 1919, 52% between the wars and 30% after 1945. A semi in Eltham has a single party wall, so one neighbour hears the chasing, and 35% of homes here are semi-detached.

Pre-1919 lime and post-war fabric in Eltham houses

The 17% of Eltham homes built before 1919 need a gentler approach than the interwar stock. Their walls are often solid brick laid in lime mortar, with lime plaster on lath inside, and they rely on moisture escaping through the wall. Patching them with cement render or dense gypsum traps that moisture and brings damp back within a few winters. Where plaster has lost its key we replaster in lime, and original sash windows are overhauled with new cords, beads and draught strips before replacement is considered.

At the other end, 30% of Eltham homes were built after 1945, and post-war houses bring different fabric: concrete ground floors, early cavity walls and sometimes asbestos in textured ceilings, floor tiles or boiler cupboards. Those materials are tested before anything is drilled or stripped. With 32% of homes terraced and 39% semi-detached or detached, we also plan how materials come in and waste goes out, since a mid-terrace house has no side access and everything passes through the hall.

Windows, doors and roofs on protected Eltham streets

In Eltham, a protected street changes what a refurbishment can do to the outside of a house. Royal Greenwich has 23 conservation areas, among them the Eltham Palace Conservation Area, designated in 1971, and the Eltham Green Conservation Area, designated in 1975. The council's list marks which conservation areas are under Article 4 directions, and it says there is less permitted development in those areas, so planning permission may be needed for most works. Replacing windows, a front door or roof covering on a house there is checked before anything is ordered.

The Arts and Crafts cottages of the Progress Estate by Well Hall carry their own control: the estate was granted Article 4 Direction status by the Department of the Environment in 1973. On a refurbishment there, windows and doors are usually repaired or matched rather than swapped for a standard modern product, and your designer confirms with Royal Greenwich what needs consent. Royal Greenwich also keeps a local heritage list of over 500 buildings of local architectural or historic interest, so check whether your house is on it before changing its front.

Working hours, scaffolds and skips outside an Eltham house

A house refurbishment in Eltham runs to Royal Greenwich's hours for noisy work: usually 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays, with none on Sundays and bank holidays. Environmental Health has special powers over building noise under the Control of Pollution Act 1974. In a semi, the neighbour hears the drilling and chasing through the party wall, so we group the loud work, such as chasing, breaking out old screed and removing plaster, into the first weeks and tell next door what is coming.

Outside the house, the paperwork depends on where things stand. A skip on your own drive or front garden needs no licence from Royal Greenwich, which suits an Eltham semi with a front drive. For a skip in the road, an approved skip company applies for the licence, which is usually valid for 30 days. Scaffolding over the pavement for gutter, chimney-stack or roof repairs needs a scaffolding licence charged by the month, so roof and stack work is programmed early and the scaffold is struck as soon as it is done.

• Lime plastering on solid walls and lath and plaster ceiling repairs
• Hack-off and replaster, or a skim over sound plaster
• Pre-sale and probate refurbishments of empty houses

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 5 statistical areas in Eltham. Counts rounded by the VOA.

People planning house refurbishment in Eltham may also want home renovation in Eltham, house refurbishment across Greenwich, builders in London for house refurbishment, snagging a house refurbishment, house refurbishment anywhere in London and Living In During the Work.

Why Choose GS Renovation in Eltham

A house refurbishment involves many trades working through one building, and time is lost in the gaps between them. We run the strip-out, first fix, plastering, second fix and decoration in sequence under one site lead, so each room is ready when the next trade arrives. The registered electrician certifies the rewire, a gas engineer on the Gas Safe Register does the gas work, and at the end you have the certificates and a record of what was found behind the walls of your Eltham house.

• Neighbours given notice before the noisy stages
• Radiators, sockets and switches positioned at first fix, never after decorating
• Every wall of the house tapped and every circuit tested before the refurbishment is priced

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