Summit Cladding loves a challenge – especially when other specialists don’t want to take on the work.
Noel and Heather had lived in their beautiful Edwardian house in North London for over 20 years and had carefully restored the property while keeping most of its original features.
But there was one outstanding project; to refurbish the original front door canopy. The house was nearly 100 years old and the timber gallows brackets supporting the canopy had already been replaced before.
Precise requirements
The problem now was that the flat roof had failed and water was creating damp in the basement of the house. When I first visited my clients they were very precise about their requirements and insisted that the new canopy had to match the original.
Noel and Heather had been searching for ages but couldn’t find anyone who would take on the project like this. The timbers were so large that some of these designs could only be created by joining two pieces of timber together to make the correct thickness.
Flat roof solution
The timber gallows brackets were twice the weight and size of the normal specification but we wanted to be sure that we maintained the character and period of the house, as our client demanded.
The construction of the timber framework took two days and we changed the way the flat roof drainage operated to ensure that there was no more damp penetration.
We fitted a timber tongue and groove soffit and sculptured mouldings, exactly the same as the Edwardian carpenters did 100 years ago. A new three-layer high performance felt roof with a 20-year guarantee was completely concealed behind all the decorative timber detail.
Dog trouble!
Our clients had chosen a shade of red that they liked, and at the same time we painted the original timber door and step. There was only one hiccup, when their schnauzer dog, Bruce, decided to jump up against the freshly painted door! After that, Bruce was banished to the kitchen while the door was sorted out.
After five days the job was finished and Noel and Heather were full of praise for the skill of our installation team.