House Refurbishment Pimlico

Whole houses are scarce in Pimlico. Only 6% of homes here are houses, all of them terraced, against 94% that are flats. So a house refurbishment in Pimlico usually means one of the stucco terraces that has stayed a single home, or one being brought back to use after years of letting. The work is renewing the fabric of that house: wiring, plumbing, heating, plaster, floors, sashes and the roof, without re-planning the rooms.

For Pimlico, 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 Pimlico: we renew the wiring, pipework, heating, plaster, floors and joinery of the whole house under one contract, and a registered electrician certifies the rewire.

The fabric of an early Victorian Pimlico terrace house

Expect pre-1919 fabric in a Pimlico terrace house: 55% of all homes here were built before 1919, and the typical house is a white-stucco early Victorian terrace. That means solid brick walls rendered in stucco at the front, lime plaster on lath inside, timber floors on joists spanning between party walls, and a butterfly or shallow pitched roof behind a parapet. Each of those needs a different repair from the materials in a modern house.

The practical consequence is the choice of plaster and paint. Lime plaster lets the solid wall dry out, and patching it with gypsum tends to hold damp at skirting level. Where ceilings still have lath, we decide room by room whether to consolidate and repair or to take down and replace with board, and we price the two separately so you can see the difference. Cornices and ceiling roses are recorded before any ceiling comes down.

Housing in Pimlico

Roughly 10,180 dwellings sit on the valuation list for Pimlico. 6% are houses and 94% flats, and by age 55% predate 1919, 10% are interwar and 34% post-war. Since most homes here are flats, where most homes in Pimlico are flats, a whole house is refurbished as one building, with a single intake for the services and one roof to keep sound.

Windows, doors and roofs in the Pimlico Conservation Area

Check first whether the house is in the Pimlico Conservation Area, first designated in 1968 and extended in 1973, 1990 and 2006, with its audit adopted on 10 April 2006. In a Westminster conservation area, some alterations that would not need planning permission elsewhere do need it. On a house refurbishment the items that usually raise the question are the front sashes, the front door, the roof covering and anything visible from the street.

Repair keeps you on the safest ground. Overhauling sashes, splicing in new timber and renewing cords and beads keeps the original windows and their appearance. Westminster has also removed permitted development rights in eight conservation areas, so your designer checks whether this house is affected before any replacement is specified. The same audits identify unlisted buildings of merit, and a listed house needs listed building consent for works affecting its character. We confirm the status before the scope in Pimlico is priced.

Rewiring, replumbing and heating a whole Pimlico house

Renewing the services is usually the core of a Pimlico house refurbishment, and it sets the order of everything else. The house is stripped back, floorboards are lifted along the planned routes, and first fix wiring, pipework and heating go in before any plastering starts. A registered electrician rewires and certifies the installation, and an engineer on the Gas Safe Register carries out the boiler and gas work. Radiator positions and the boiler flue are fixed at this stage, because moving them after plastering means cutting out new work.

Those certificates matter at the end. Westminster's policy is to issue a completion certificate only once all fees due have been received and all relevant electrical and gas certificates have been supplied, so we collect them as each trade finishes. Westminster building control also wants to know the start date at least 2 days before work begins. Where joists are notched for new runs, a structural engineer decides on any strengthening before the floors go back down.

Working on a Pimlico street: hours, scaffold and skips

A Pimlico house refurbishment is run from the pavement, so the street rules come first. Normal hours for noisy construction in Westminster are Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 8am to 1pm. Noisy work outside those hours needs a Control of Pollution Act Section 61 application at least 28 days before works start. So strip out, chasing and breaking out old hearths are programmed inside the normal day, and the neighbours either side of the terrace are told the dates in advance.

A roof or chimney repair usually needs scaffold at the front, and Westminster needs a temporary structure licence for scaffolding and construction fencing on the road or pavement. The footway must not be reduced to less than 1.5m wide around works. On a terrace street with parked cars on both sides, we plan skips, grab lorries and material drops around that width, often using bagged waste and timed collections instead of a skip.

• Timber repairs where rot or beetle turns up at strip-out
• Sash boxes overhauled with new cords, parting beads and brush seals
• Lime plastering on solid walls and lath and plaster ceiling repairs

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Pimlico North and Pimlico South. Counts rounded by the VOA.

If you are weighing up options for your Pimlico property, it is worth reading home renovation in Pimlico, house refurbishment across Westminster, builders in London for house refurbishment, which parts of a house refurbishment building control inspects, our London house refurbishment page and New Central Heating Cost.

Trusted House Refurbishment in Pimlico

We run a house refurbishment as one job with one programme, so you are not coordinating separate trades through a narrow terrace. The programme sets out strip out, first fix, plaster, second fix and finish, and whether the house is lived in or empty during each. Certified work is done by the right people: a registered electrician for the wiring and an engineer on the Gas Safe Register for gas. We keep lime and original joinery where the house still has them.

• Radiators, sockets and switches positioned at first fix, never after decorating
• A top-floor-first programme when your family stays in the house
• Dust screens and floor protection in occupied homes

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