Double hung timber sash windows look great on older or period homes but they can be draughty and offer poor thermal performance, assuming you want to keep them and not replace them with modern double glazed units[we wouldn’t unless they look the part!] then there are a number of things [...]

So just before Christmas we carried out at building survey on a small, late nineteenth century terraced house on the Kent coast, it needed some work as it had been lived in by an elderly occupant.  There was an extension that appeared to have been constructed in the 1950s and [...]

Quite often what appears to be an easy way to make a room bigger in an older house is to think about removing the chimney breast – at first thought it seems easy, knock it out with a sledgehammer, bag up and remove the rubble, plaster up, decorate and hey [...]

“MP condemns Basement Conversions” a short article about a debate in the commons last week moaning about basement conversions and developments, looked a bit insubstantial and despite their statements to the contrary a little nimby and a little bit xenophobic to us!!  Here’s MP Karen Bucks comments and here Mark [...]

We posted recently about a pre purchase building survey we carried out in a building at Dungeness,  that post caught the eye or Google search of another prospective purchaser and we have recently been back on Dungeness Estate  [map of the estate here] surveying again.  What seems to be a [...]

When was the last time you checked your garden walls or if you are buying had a look to see what the walls are like?  The repair and replacement of brick and masonry garden walls can be considerable – the most recent wall reconstruction that we managed  on behalf of [...]

The latest edition of the twice yearly “Exchanged” magazine for home buyers from the RICS is now available, free copies are available form Collier Stevens – just call us and ask!  There is also an associated website here.

A very short post of books and resources to help first time buyers who, if this Guardian article is to be be believed are 4 years older in London than in the North.  We like Kate Faulkner’s site Designs on Property which is rammed with useful hints and links, including [...]

That’ll be where I live and where our Kent office is located, one of the original Cinque Ports along with Hastings, New Romney Dover and Sandwich Hythe retains its slightly old world and, let’s be honest, slightly slow charm.  Not for Hythe the nightclubs and amusements of nearby Folkestone, here [...]

The July RICS house price index was published last week, it doesn’t actually contain much we weren’t able to guess. In essence House prices continue to decline with generally negative expectations across the market for the coming months except in London where prices seem to be stable and rising although [...]