6 min read
Bifold, sliding or French doors: how to actually choose
Three ways to open a wall, each right for a different house. The deciding factors are usually the ones nobody mentions in a showroom.
Read itAdvice
The questions people ask us before they are ready to buy.
No filler and no sales pitch — just the things worth knowing before you spend five figures on the outside of your house. Written by the people who fit it.
Doors
5 min read
Choosing a front door colour that suits your house
The most visible decision you will make, taken from a small sample in the wrong light. A few rules make it much harder to get wrong.
Read itWindows
6 min read
Aluminium or uPVC windows: which is right for your house?
Not a question of which is better. They fail and succeed in different places, and the house usually decides.
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6 min read
Replacing windows in a conservation area or period home
Stamford, the older parts of Peterborough, half the villages around them. Here is what is actually allowed, and what gets refused.
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6 min read
Condensation, draughts and cold spots: what your windows are telling you
Where the condensation forms tells you almost everything. One version is harmless, one is a ventilation problem, and one means the unit has failed.
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6 min read
Secondary glazing or replacement windows in a period home?
If consent rules out replacement, secondary glazing is the serious alternative. It is better at one thing than new windows and worse at another.
Read it7 min read
Replacing windows in a Cambridge Victorian terrace
Cambridge’s terraces are a specific job: solid walls, original sashes, conservation overlays and traffic noise. Here is how to get all four right at once.
Read it6 min read
Bourne’s newer estates: when developer windows wear out
Half of Bourne is stone-front market town; the other half is estates built in the last twenty-five years, now reaching the age where builder-grade windows give up.
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6 min read
Peterborough’s townships: replacing windows in Bretton, the Ortons and Werrington
Half the city lives in townships the Development Corporation built in the 1970s and 80s. Those houses are now on their first or second set of replacement windows — and the difference between the generations is bigger than most people expect.
Read itLiving spaces
7 min read
Your conservatory is unusable half the year. Three ways to fix it.
The problem is almost always the roof, not the windows. Which of the three fixes you need depends on how far gone it is.
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7 min read
Orangery, conservatory or extension: which are you actually building?
The names get used loosely and the differences are real. Mostly it comes down to how much roof is glass, and everything follows from that.
Read itBuying advice
7 min read
How to compare three window quotes fairly
Three quotes for "the same" windows can differ by thousands. Usually they are not the same windows. Here is how to tell.
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5 min read
What FENSA registration actually means when you sell your house
Most people first hear about FENSA from a solicitor, at the worst possible moment. Here is what it is and why it matters years later.
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6 min read
What actually happens on installation day
The part people worry about most and ask about least. Here is the day, hour by hour, including the bits nobody enjoys.
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6 min read
Do you need Building Regulations approval for this?
Different from planning permission, more often required than people think, and the paperwork that surfaces years later when you sell.
Read itStill not sure what you need?
That is what the survey is for. We come out, look at the property, and tell you what we would do — including when the answer is to do nothing yet.