Renovations in Woodford

The semis and detached houses across IG8 were built between the wars with cavity walls, hipped roofs and repeating spans, and that regularity is genuinely good news for anyone renovating. Loads run in predictable places, the spans are consistent from house to house, and the plots are wide enough to allow work sideways as well as backwards. GS Renovation works across Woodford Green, South Woodford and the roads backing onto Epping Forest, opening up ground floors, converting lofts and remodelling kitchens and bathrooms in houses now approaching a century old.

Cavity Walls and the Interwar Load Path

An interwar external wall is two leaves of brick with a gap between them, tied together with metal ties, and the inner leaf takes most of the floor and roof load. That matters when an opening is formed, because a beam has to bear onto the inner leaf on padstones and the cavity has to be closed and trayed above the opening so water crossing the outer leaf is thrown back out rather than run into the room. Wall ties of this age can also be corroded, and rust expanding in the bed joints shows as regular horizontal cracking.

Internally the load path is equally consistent. The wall between the hall and the front reception, and the one between the two receptions, generally carry the first floor joists, and the chimney breast often sits in the same line. Ground floors are suspended timber on sleeper walls with a ventilated void beneath. Any opening in one of those walls therefore needs a beam with its bearings taken down into the flank walls on padstones, designed by an engineer we appoint at the survey stage. We build to the drawing they issue and never write the calculations ourselves, which is the correct division of responsibility on any structural job.

Hip to Gable, Garages and Building Sideways

A hipped roof slopes on three or four sides, which robs the loft of exactly the space you would want to stand up in. A hip to gable conversion rebuilds the sloping end as a vertical gable wall, giving full width usable floor, and it pairs naturally with a rear dormer for head height at the back. It is real structural work: the new gable has to be built off adequate support below, the roof structure is rebuilt with new purlins or steel where the old struts are removed, and the engineer checks the whole assembly before it is built.

The integral or attached garage is the other opportunity. Converting one means dealing with a floor slab that sits lower than the house and has no insulation, walls that may be single skin, and footings shallower than a habitable room requires. Done properly it involves a new insulated floor build up, the front opening closed with a wall on a proper foundation, and damp proofing tied into the existing course. Building a room over the garage, or extending sideways beyond it, is a bigger step again, needing the existing foundations checked by the engineer and the drainage rerouted around the new footprint.

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