Property Maintenance in Kingswood (KT20)
The houses in and around the Kingswood Warren estate are large, individual and set on mature, well-screened plots. On a property like that, upkeep works better as a schedule than as a series of surprises, and what needs attention is rarely only the house itself.
Upkeep planned rather than reacted to
On a big house there is simply more of everything, and more of it out of sight.
Nobody sees the rear elevation from the drive, and nothing about the back of a garage or the far side of a chimney announces itself until water is somewhere it should not be. The alternative to waiting is a proper walk round once a year, written down: guttering and downpipes, external timber and its paintwork, pointing and render, sills and copings, ground levels and drainage, and the state of everything that is not the main house. That list then gets ordered by consequence rather than by appearance. What is letting water in gets done now, what will let water in next winter gets budgeted for, and the cosmetic items sit at the bottom until it suits you. It is far cheaper than reaching the same work by way of a damp bedroom.
The walls, gates, outbuildings and drives
On a mature plot there is usually a good deal of building that is not the house: boundary and garden walls, piers and gates, garaging and outbuildings, steps, paths and a drive. These weather harder than the house does, because they take water from every side and have less protecting them. A free-standing wall with a failed coping takes water in along its whole length and starts losing its pointing, then its brick faces. Established trees and planting close to structures bring their own effects on drains, paths and shallow foundations. It is all ordinary building work, and all of it is much cheaper attended to early than left until a section has to come down.
Working around a household, and who does the work
Owners here generally carry on living in the house while work goes on, and a maintenance programme is easy enough to plan around that: work by elevation, keep access equipment up only while it is earning, and leave the site tidy each day rather than at the end of the job. SG runs its own bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers and groundworkers. Roofing, electrics and decorating are specialist trades brought in and managed by us, so a year's schedule stays with one firm and one point of contact instead of being handed round. Where several items sit on the same elevation it is worth doing them together while the access is there, and deliveries and storage are planned around the drive and the planting rather than dropped wherever is convenient.
More in Kingswood
Everything we do in Kingswood is on the Kingswood area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the building maintenance page.
Common questions
Q.01What does a planned maintenance schedule actually involve?
A walk round the whole property, a written list of what needs doing, and a price against each item. You then decide what happens this year and what is budgeted for next, rather than reacting to whatever fails first.
Q.02Do you look after garden walls and outbuildings as well as the house?
Yes, and they are usually the items most overdue. A free-standing wall takes weather from both sides and from the top, so its coping and its pointing matter more than they do anywhere on the house.
Q.03Can work be done while we are living here?
Yes. Maintenance work is easier to plan around a household than a build is, and working one elevation at a time keeps the disruption in one place rather than spread across the house.
Q.04How is access priced on a large house?
As its own item, so you can see what it costs. It is also the reason to group work by elevation, because a scaffold or tower already standing is the cheapest it will ever be.
Thinking about building maintenance in Kingswood?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.