Riverside town, damp winters, windows worth saving.
Tonbridge is a straightforward run for me and a town with a great deal of good Victorian and Edwardian housing. Solid, well built family homes, most of them with their original timber sash windows still in place, and most of those windows entirely repairable.
The terraces and villas around the town centre tend to have well proportioned sashes with decent timber in them. The problems are almost always maintenance problems rather than design problems, which is the best kind of problem to have, because maintenance can be caught up on.
Free survey, free written quote, no call out charge, and an honest opinion on whether the work is worth doing at all.
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High Street, Tonbridge. Photo by Peter Trimming, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Medway runs right through Tonbridge and a lot of the town sits low and flat beside it. Low lying, slow draining ground means persistent damp in the air through the winter months, and that shows up in the windows. Ground floor sills and bottom rails on the shaded side of a house often never fully dry out between October and March.
Timber that stays damp does not have to be soaked to decay. Slow, quiet rot under a sound looking paint film is the most common thing I find in Tonbridge, and it is why I always press on sills with a blade at survey rather than judging by eye. Caught early it is a small splice repair. Left another few years it is a new sash.
Every job in Tonbridge starts the same way: a free survey, an honest conversation about what your windows actually need, and a written quote with no pressure attached.
Complete restoration of original timber sashes, done the traditional way.
Find out moreDecayed sections cut out and matching new timber spliced in.
Find out moreSnapped cords and unbalanced sashes put right so windows glide again.
Find out moreCracked panes, failed putty and slimline double glazed upgrades.
Find out moreThe single biggest thing that decides what a sash window job costs is how long it has been left. A small area of soft timber in a sill is an hour's work and a bit of matched timber. The same window three winters later can need a whole new bottom rail, and three winters after that it is a new sash.
If you are not sure where yours are on that scale, send me photographs on WhatsApp. I will tell you honestly whether you need me now or whether you can leave it another year, and there is no charge for asking.
Yes, Tonbridge and the surrounding area including Hildenborough, Golden Green, Hadlow and across to Tunbridge Wells, Sevenoaks and Maidstone.
Often you cannot tell by looking, because the paint still appears sound. Soft spots, dark staining, blistering paint and a blade that sinks into the timber are the signs. If you are unsure, I check it properly at the free survey.
Repair is almost always both cheaper and better. Replacement is a last resort for windows that are genuinely beyond saving, and even then I make new sashes to match rather than fitting something off the shelf.
Yes. Draught proofing makes an immediate difference, and slimline double glazed sashes fitted into your existing frames go further again without changing how the house looks.
Based between Blackheath and the Medway towns, covering South East London, Kent and Essex. Not on the list? Get in touch anyway, I can often help with specific projects.