Builders
in Balham, SW12

Builders in Balham work across very different fabric: the Nightingale Lane appraisal records painted brickwork, altered windows and arbitrarily replaced front boundaries on some semi-detached pairs, while the Heaver appraisal describes houses that still carry their carved brickwork, stained glass and tessellated paths.

Wandsworth's LP5 supports alterations that respect the form, period and detailing of the house, use matching or complementary materials and stay visually subservient to it, which is the test a builder's choice of brick, mortar and window has to meet.

On the Heaver Estate, front-facing work is controlled for flats as well as houses: one direction covers single family houses and the other covers houses converted to flats, and both reach the replacement of windows, doors and stained glass on elevations facing the road.

On a matching terrace, LP5 also asks that work take account of the distinctive qualities of blocks or terraces and not undermine their established uniformity, so a repair to one house follows the brick, bond and pointing of its neighbours. Access counts too: Western Lane has no footway, and its appraisal compares it to a mews, so deliveries there are agreed with neighbours in advance.

Outside Balham: Belsize Park Gardens, NW3, a full-house refurbishment in Belsize Park built by one team from basement to roof.

Repointing is where well-meant repairs do most harm. The Heaver appraisal records that the houses were originally pointed with lime mortar, warns that cement-rich pointing can damage the soft red brick because it sets harder than the brick around it, and suggests a mix of 1 part lime, 1 part cement and 6 parts sand, confining the work to joints that are loose, crumbling or heavily eroded.

Painted brick is the other common job: the appraisal says it is desirable to remove paint from brick elevations, by methods gentle enough for the brick, and that sandblasting should never be used because it damages the soft brick.

We write the repair specification before the strip-out starts, listing which bricks, joints, windows and doors are to be repaired and which replaced, so the site team prices and works to the same list.

We put the survey, the design, the applications and the build under one programme, so the person who measured the house is answerable for what is built in it.

Sources: Wandsworth: Nightingale Lane conservation area appraisal and management strategy; Wandsworth: Heaver Estate conservation area appraisal and management strategy, part one; Wandsworth Local Plan 2023–2038 (adopted 19 July 2023); Wandsworth: Heaver Estate conservation area appraisal and management strategy, part two.