House Refurbishment Putney

House refurbishment in Putney is a smaller slice of local work than the flats around it, but it is the heavier job. Houses make up 25% of homes here: terraces are 16% of all homes and semi-detached or detached houses 8%, and 36% of all homes predate 1919. Renewing one of those Edwardian or earlier SW15 houses means new wiring, pipework and heating, then lime and lath repairs, floors, sashes, roof and decoration, keeping the rooms where they are.

For Putney, 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 Putney: 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 a Putney house refurbishment renews, and in what order

A Putney house refurbishment renews the services and fabric in a fixed order: strip out, repairs, first fix, plaster, second fix, finish. The local mix decides which repairs fill that order. 36% of homes were built before 1919, 8% between 1919 and 1939, and 54% after 1945, so an Edwardian terrace and a post-war house need different repairs. The older one brings solid walls, lime mortar and lath ceilings. The newer one brings cavity walls, gypsum plaster and tired original wiring.

In the Edwardian houses we lift floorboards once and run the rewire, the replumb and the new heating pipework in the same first fix. A registered electrician tests and certifies the circuits, and a registered gas engineer connects the boiler, before any ceiling is closed. Where joists are notched from earlier plumbing, or a stair has dropped, we repair them while the floor is open. Sash windows are overhauled or renewed in timber, and only then does the plasterer start, in lime where the wall is lime.

Housing in Putney

Take the 20,990 or so homes the valuation list gives Putney: 75% flats, 25% houses, 36% from before 1919, 8% interwar and 54% post-war. Most homes here are flats, and a whole house in Putney is refurbished as one building, roof down.

Roofs, windows and front doors in Putney conservation areas

The outside of a Putney house can carry more rules than the inside. Wandsworth has 46 conservation areas, from a single short street such as Deodar Road to a large one such as West Putney, and both of those examples are in Putney. Within a conservation area, planning permission is needed to demolish completely or substantially an unlisted building of 115 cubic metres or more. Like for like repair of slate, sashes and brickwork is the safe line to hold.

Eight Wandsworth conservation areas also have Article 4 Directions, and Putney Lower Common is one of them. There the direction applies to 15 to 36 Commondale. A direction of this kind removes some permitted development rights, so a change of roof covering, windows or front door that would otherwise need no application can need planning permission. If your house is on Commondale, your designer checks what the direction covers before the roofer, the joiner or the window maker orders anything, and we build to that answer. A listed house is stricter again, because Wandsworth requires listed building consent for alterations that affect its special character, inside as well as out.

Skips, scaffold and suspended bays on a Putney street

Street space outside a Putney house decides how a refurbishment is supplied and cleared. A skip on the public road needs a Wandsworth licence with a minimum period of five days, and the biggest skip allowed on the highway is 12 cubic yards (9.2 cubic metres). No skip licence is issued for a red route. The skip firm applies and must hold public liability insurance for the whole licence period. A skip on your own forecourt needs no highway licence at all.

Inside a Controlled Parking Zone the highway licence also needs a parking bay suspension, charged per 5m space per chargeable day, so every idle day costs you. Scaffold for chimney stacks, gutters or a front roof slope needs its own licence, and Wandsworth charges an inspection fee on each application and renewal. We book the skip for the strip out week only, bring the scaffold in when roof and chimney repairs are ready to start, and run bagged collections for the finishing weeks.

Living in the house, or refurbishing a Putney house empty

Whether anyone lives in the Putney house during the works changes the programme more than the size of the house. Empty, the whole house is stripped at once, first fixed floor by floor, plastered through and then finished, which is the shortest route. That suits a buyer of a dated house, an executor preparing a probate sale, or a landlord between tenants. Occupied, we phase the work so a bathroom, a kitchen tap and a dry bedroom stay usable at every stage.

A landlord re-letting a whole Putney house also has the energy rules to meet. Since 1 April 2018 a private landlord may not let a domestic property on a new tenancy with an EPC rating of F or G unless an exemption applies. When a wall, floor or roof is renovated, Part L can require its insulation to be brought up to standard. Loft insulation, insulation under suspended floors and heating controls therefore go into the same programme, not a second visit after the tenants move in.

• Panelled doors eased and rehung, skirtings and architraves pieced in to match
• Damp investigation, repair of the cause and making good
• Floorboard lifting, joist repairs and relaying on every floor

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Putney Embankment & Lower Common, Putney Town & Wandsworth Park, Putney West and East Putney. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Two or three things usually come up alongside house refurbishment on a Putney job: home renovation in Putney, house refurbishment across Wandsworth, builders in London for house refurbishment, which parts of a house refurbishment building control inspects, house refurbishment across London and Damp Causes and Fixes.

Trusted House Refurbishment in Putney

We run a house refurbishment as one programme with one team, so you are not booking a plasterer, a joiner and a decorator around each other. We open the house once, agree what stays and what goes on a walk round with you, and close nothing up until the electrics are certified by a registered electrician and the gas work is done by a registered gas engineer. The founder, Abdelaaziz Saaid, with decades of hands-on work behind him, oversees the sequence and is your single point of contact.

• Damp traced to its source before anyone suggests an injected course
• Clean, tidy and reliable tradespeople
• 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).