WhatsApp has become our go-to tool for this; it’s easy, quick and almost ubiquitous. So, we thought why not allow the good folk of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and surrounding areas contact us via WhatsApp straight off the website!?

And why wouldn’t you want to chat with us. Colin’s quite the raconteur when he gets going!

The observant amongst you will notice our website now has a big green WhatsApp button on each page. No doubt you’ll have some questions about how to use it.

If you’re on a PC, Laptop or tablet, (you might want your mobile phone’s camera to hand to take photos of windows, doors, exterior joinery etc) click on the button and follow the 3 easy-peasy steps.

If you’re viewing the website on your phone, well that’s even easier-peasier. Head to the Contact Us page and just click the WhatsApp button. Like magic, you’re chatting with us.

You can of course still contact us via email or on the “dog and bone” in exactly the same way as before. If you email, just remember to include your phone number as it’s helpful to talk things over.

After removing the fixed sidelights, it also became clear the Mullion was also kept damp and had started to rot into the sill.

We began be replacing the tenons of the mullions and jams.

Next, we moved onto the side lights and doors themselves. After ensuring everything opened and closed correctly, we re-puttied were necessary before giving everything a coat of breathable primer.

An honorable mention goes to the owners of the property who kept us fueled with a fine selection of biscuits! For those who haven’t tried the traditional way of enjoying a TimTam, you don’t know what you’re missing!

Also clearing away some of the render, it became clear that the original porch had been replaced at some point with one of a shallower pitch. As a result, the rafters met the wall below the timber ground which had provided a good fixing point for the top of the original rafters. The timber ground itself had rotten fairly badly so there was very little holding the porch back against the wall.

Rather than replace all of the rafters or move the timber ground down a course and risk disturbing the gallows brackets and soft red rubber bricks, we chose to fix sprockets to the top of the rafters and then fix those to a replacement timber ground. The ground was dovetailed and chemically anchored into the wall.

As the sprockets were fixed back to the ground, the whole porch started to pull back against the wall into position.

After replacing a few broken tiles with reclaimed ones, we re-rendered and pebble dashed the wall, ready for the decorators to finish their work.

Benefits include; improved light and ventilation. Rot-proof wrought iron. Unbeatable security prevents people getting in (or out). Amazon drivers find it very convenient.

Our customer, Danny, had this to say; “I’m over to moon, it’s really made the most of the view. I’ve got everything I need in here. Kettle, toaster. It suits me down to the ground. Urrrmmm, when does someone bring me my porridge? “

Traditionally, this cladding detail, often associated with late Victorian and Arts and Crafts styles, would have been fitted before rendering. By cutting a chamfer onto the planks, the render effectively forms a dovetail with the cladding, helping stop cupping and fixing it in place

After carefully removing the cladding, we needed to tidy up the wall behind to ensure we had a good fixing medium and made the decorators job a little easier by giving the render a coat of white paint.

We could then fit the replacement cladding, ensuring a solid fixing using stainless screws.

For this job, we were also asked to replace the existing casement windows, which we did in pressure treated pine with hardwood sills.

For less than 1/3 of the replacement cost, we were able to rebuild the door, replacing the back panels in rot-proof Tricoya and the bottom rail in rot-proof Accoya.

It also meant the homeowner could keep the existing keys and opening mechanisms and within a day, have their garage back in use.

The main reason the cladding hadn’t weathered too well was down to material choice. Joinery-standard untreated softwood hadn’t stood up to weather, despite its quality. We opted for Tricoya; an Accoya sheet material with similar rot-resistant properties, that makes it ideal for this type of application.

Another area we could improve on was the fixing method. Fixed using galvanised ring shank nails, the cladding was solid enough, but when being fired through a nailgun, the galvanising is often stripped off allowing rust to develop on the nail and eventually appearing on the outer surface , cracking the paintwork. We opted for specific stainless steel fixings to prevent this happening in future.

Lastly, any exposed end grain is vulnerable to weather. We built the replacement cladding like a cabinet, carefully mitering the corners and using floating tenons were necessary to ensure perfect alignment.

Most of this was done on the ground but to ensure a perfect fit, we wanted to make the final cuts for each dormer on the  access tower. Finding space for tools, materials and ourselves on a small mobile access tower was going to be a challenge. We also wanted to achieve good accuracy in the final fit. We turned to a handy solution in the form of the Mafell KSS series of saws which proved more than capable of producing the cut quality and accuracy we needed whilst taking up minimal space on the tower.

The glass was original to these 1920s windows and was manufactured using the drawing process which gives the tell-tale vertical ripples in the reflection. As the rest of the glass was original too, using float glass for the replacements would have been quite obvious so we sourced some drawn glass, which is still manufactured in France and Germany.

The putty, being 100 years old or so, had dried to a hard layer, firmly attached to the rebate of the sash. We have a number of different methods to quickly remove old putty without damaging the timber of the sash. This ensures the new glass gets a good bed of new putty and enough depth on the face.

With some master bricklayers on the case with the wall, we were given the task of repairing the porch. Made from a mix of oak and elm rounds, the original would have been made using the scribe rule method to align the joinery.

We wanted to keep as much of the original timber as possible so we set about repairing the joints which had snapped in the accident.

Templates were employed to give the correct orientation and alignment for the tenons. After that, it was just a case of blending the existing into the original a little more before reassembling on site.

Most exterior joinery has very robust joints to withstand the elements and rigors of life outdoors. This porch was no exception so we paid our initial attention to the mortise and tenons around the structure. Once they were sound, we were ready to deal with the sill itself.

The sill was made from especially large section of Accoya. A fiddly area, due to the sheer size of the timbers, was the mitre on the corner. We carefully cut this to match perfectly at the corner as it’s the most exposed and vulnerable area of the sill.

Once the repairs were in place and jointed into the original posts and any areas of original sill that were to be kept, it was ready for a few coats of good quality primer.