House Refurbishment Hendon

House refurbishment in Hendon means renewing the fabric of a whole house, from the wiring and pipes to the plaster, floors and roof, without re-planning its rooms. Houses make up 38% of Hendon homes on the VOA list, with terraced houses at 13% of all homes and semi-detached or detached houses at 24%. The age split tells you what sits behind the walls, with 20% of homes built before 1919 and 37% between the wars. We strip out, repair and rebuild in one programme, whether you live in the house or it stands empty.

For Hendon, 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 Hendon: 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 or older Hendon house needs renewing

Interwar building is a large part of Hendon: 37% of all local homes date from 1919 to 1939, and the area's housing is characterised as interwar houses and mansion blocks. A semi of that age usually has solid or early cavity brick walls, early gypsum or lime plaster, a suspended timber ground floor and often a hipped tiled roof. The wiring has typically been extended in stages and the heating added to over decades, so a full rewire and a new heating system are the normal starting point.

The fifth of Hendon homes built before 1919 asks for a different approach. Walls laid in lime mortar and finished in lime plaster on lath need breathable repairs, so we patch in lime or use a board and plaster system that lets the brickwork dry out. Cement render and gypsum over old solid walls trap moisture and move damp around rather than curing it. Timber sash windows, panelled doors, cornices and skirtings in these houses are usually worth repairing, and we record them before strip-out so matching sections can be run.

Housing in Hendon

The stock in Hendon runs to roughly 16,060 dwellings, 62% of them flats and 38% houses, built 20% before 1919, 37% between 1919 and 1939 and 43% after 1945. Where most homes are flats, a whole house in Hendon is refurbished as one building, roof down.

Windows, doors and roofs in Hendon conservation areas

Before you order new windows, a front door or roof tiles for a Hendon house, check whether it sits in a conservation area. Hendon The Burroughs Conservation Area and Hendon Church End Conservation Area were both designated by Barnet Council on 27 July 1983. At 1-8 Burroughs Gardens and 63-77 (odd) The Burroughs, an Article 4 direction removes permitted development rights for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a dwellinghouse, and for other alterations to the roof.

For a refurbishment that changes how one of those Burroughs houses looks from the street, the direction can turn routine renewal into a planning matter. Swapping timber sashes for plastic frames, replacing a panelled front door or re-covering the roof in a different tile are the kinds of change to raise with the council first. Your designer or agent checks with Barnet Council and applies where needed, and we build to the decision. Like-for-like repair in matching materials keeps the Hendon programme simplest, so we price repair alongside renewal.

The order of works on a Hendon house, lived in or empty

A Hendon house refurbishment runs in a fixed order: strip-out, repairs to structure, roof and chimney stacks as the survey requires, first fix of wiring, pipework and heating, then plaster, second fix, joinery and decoration. Each stage is finished and inspected before the next covers it. Where a chimney stack is shared with next door, repairing or rebuilding it needs a party wall notice under the Party Wall Act, and you as building owner serve that notice before the scaffold goes up. On a street, a skip or scaffold on the road or pavement needs a licence from the highway authority, and a parking bay may need suspending for deliveries, so those are booked before the start date.

Whether you stay in the house decides the programme. An empty Hendon house can be stripped in one go, with power and water isolated and every floor worked at once, which is the quickest route for a probate sale or a landlord between lets. If you live in it, we work floor by floor, keep one bathroom and a kitchen point running, and seal off dusty rooms behind temporary screens. That takes longer, and the rewire and heating changeover days are planned so you are not left without heat or power overnight.

Insulation, heating and the energy rating of a Hendon house

Refurbishment is when a Hendon house gains most of its energy performance, because floors are up and walls are open. When you renew a roof covering, replace windows or put in a new boiler, the energy part of the building regulations, Part L, applies to the new work, so roof insulation and proper heating controls become part of the specification. Under a suspended timber floor, insulation between the joists goes in while boards are lifted for the rewire, which saves opening the floor twice.

If you let the whole house, the rating also decides whether you can keep letting it. GOV.UK says that since 1 April 2020 landlords cannot let or continue to let a property covered by the MEES Regulations with an EPC rating below E unless a valid exemption applies. For a Hendon landlord re-letting a pre-1919 or interwar house, the measures that move the rating tend to be roof and floor insulation, heating controls and glazing. An energy assessor rates the finished house, so we programme those items before decoration.

• Whole-house rewires, certified at completion by a registered electrician
• Consumer unit replacement, with earthing and bonding brought up to standard
• Timber repairs where rot or beetle turns up at strip-out

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Hendon Central, Hendon Park, North Hendon & Sunny Hill and West Hendon. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Related reading for Hendon homeowners planning house refurbishment: home renovation in Hendon, house refurbishment across Barnet, a building contractor for a whole-house refurbishment, snagging a house refurbishment, house refurbishment anywhere in London and Signs You Need to Rewire.

Why Hendon Homeowners Choose GS Renovation

A whole house in Hendon needs one builder who holds the sequence from strip-out to decoration. We survey before pricing, agree the scope room by room and tell you what the opening-up has found before you commit to finishes. A registered electrician tests and certifies the rewire, and gas work goes to an engineer on the Gas Safe Register. Structural repairs follow the details of the structural engineer we appoint where one is needed. You get one programme and one contact, whether you are living in the house, selling it or re-letting it.

• Dust screens and floor protection in occupied homes
• Damp traced to its source before anyone suggests an injected course
• Empty and inherited houses secured and reported on while you are away

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