Renovations in Wanstead

Houses in Wanstead were built for a leafy edge of London and most still carry the features that came with that: sash windows, decorated front elevations, generous roofs and solid brick walls. Renovating one properly means keeping what makes it worth living in while dealing with the parts that have quietly failed behind the plaster. GS Renovation works throughout E11, from the streets near Christ Church Green and Wanstead High Street to the houses looking out towards Wanstead Park and Wanstead Flats, and our founder has spent over 30 years on this kind of housing stock.

Damp, Ventilation and Walls With No Cavity

Three quite different problems get called damp and treated identically, which is why so many houses are treated twice. Water crossing a solid wall from outside is penetrating damp and it is cured by fixing the gutter, the render or the pointing that is letting it in. Moisture condensing on cold internal surfaces is condensation and it is cured with heat and ventilation, not a chemical. Genuine rising damp is far rarer than the number of injected courses in E11 would suggest. We diagnose before specifying, and we say so when the answer is that nothing needs injecting.

Modernising a period house makes the ventilation question sharper rather than softer. Replace the draughty windows, insulate the loft and seal the floors, and the moisture a family produces every day has nowhere left to go. So extract fans in the kitchen and bathrooms have to duct to outside air rather than into a roof void, background ventilation needs to exist somewhere, and any internal wall insulation has to be detailed so the wall behind it stays warm enough not to condense. A comfortable house is a balance of insulation and airflow, not just insulation.

Opening Up Without Losing the House

Knocking two reception rooms into one is the most requested change in Wanstead and the easiest to do badly. Take the whole wall away in a room with a good cornice and a bay and you are left with a long space that has lost its proportions and its acoustics. The alternatives are worth considering: a wide opening with piers retained at each end, or a beam expressed as a deliberate downstand that reads as a division between two halves. The engineer sizes whichever option you choose, and the choice is architectural before it is structural.

A flush beam, hidden entirely within the floor zone above, is possible but it is more work. The joists have to be cut back and hung off the steel on hangers, which means opening the floor above, and the beam depth is limited by the joist depth so the span may need a larger section or an extra support. Whichever route is taken, the making good is what people actually see: cornice matched and run in, ceilings patched into lath and plaster without a visible line, and floor levels between the two rooms brought together properly.

Where most Wanstead projects start: whole-house refurbishment in Wanstead, everything we cover across Redbridge, renovations in Ilford, renovations in Woodford and renovation order of works.