Renovations in Ilford

A great many Ilford houses are no longer laid out the way they were built. The long Edwardian terraces off the High Road were divided into flats and bedsits over the decades, and plenty are now being brought back to family use with the partitions, meters and duplicated bathrooms of the old conversion still in place. GS Renovation carries out exactly that kind of renovation across IG1, in the streets around Valentines Park and towards Ilford station, working from an appointed structural engineer's design wherever a wall, a floor or a chimney stack is involved.

Turning a Subdivided House Back Into One Home

Stripping out a conversion tells you what you have actually bought. Stud walls appear across doorways that used to line through, a second kitchen sits in what was a bedroom, there are three consumer units where there should be one, and a soil stack has been run up the flank wall to serve a bathroom carved out of a landing. Sometimes original structure was taken out along the way with no support put back, which only becomes obvious once the ceilings come down and the deflection in the floor above is there to see.

The route back is methodical. Strip out first, then get the engineer in to look at what has been exposed and specify new steel where support is missing or damaged, then reinstate the staircase and the openings that were blocked, then a single rewire and a single heating system rather than the three partial ones you inherited. Converting a property back from separate flats into one dwelling can require planning permission in its own right, which is a question to put to Redbridge Council before the work is programmed rather than after it has started.

Chimney Breasts, Flues and Solid Walls

An Edwardian terrace usually has two stacks, and the breasts serving them steal width from the middle room and the bedroom above it. Taking them out is one of the most transformative changes available in these houses, provided the remaining masonry above is carried on steel or a designed support and the stack itself is either removed completely or properly supported at high level. Where the stack is shared with the neighbouring house, as it very often is on a terrace, that becomes a party wall matter and notice has to be served on your neighbour before any work begins.

Flues that are left in place need thought as well. A capped flue with no ventilation becomes a cold, damp shaft that pushes moisture into the chimney breast and stains the plaster, so caps are vented and an air brick is fitted low down to keep air moving. On solid nine inch walls the same principle applies more broadly: understand where the water is coming from before treating anything. Raised path levels bridging the damp course and cement render trapping moisture cause far more blown plaster in Ilford than rising damp ever does.

Where most Ilford projects start: whole-house refurbishment in Ilford, everything we cover across Redbridge, renovations in Wanstead, renovations in Woodford and how to plan a renovation.