Carpentry & Joinery in Northwood

Carpentry & Joinery in Northwood: what is different here

Joinery that matches the house in Frithwood and Green Lane

No two Frithwood houses were designed quite alike, and the later ones came from named architects, so front doors, porches and bay windows vary from plot to plot. That rules out off-the-shelf replacements inside the conservation area. A rotten bottom rail on a casement, a split door stile or a decayed sill can usually be cut out and spliced with new timber of the same section, primed on every face and painted to blend.

Where a whole window has failed, we measure and record the profiles so a matching copy can be made, and we tell you if the change is likely to need a conversation with Hillingdon's conservation officers first.

Room sizes in shared houses: the 6.51 square metre line

Hillingdon's proposed licence conditions set minimum floor areas for sleeping rooms: 6.51 square metres for one person over ten, 10.22 square metres for two, and no room below 4.64 square metres used for sleeping at all. Floor area where the ceiling is lower than 1.5 metres does not count. That last rule catches loft rooms under the sloping roofs of many HA6 houses.

Before we put up a stud partition to split a large bedroom, or line out a loft room, measure what each room will be afterwards, counting only the full-height floor. The same conditions ask licence holders to tell the council before changing the layout, so agree the plan before any timber arrives.

Locks and doors the licence spells out

Two of Hillingdon's proposed conditions are carpentry jobs in all but name. The front door of a licensed HMO needs a five-lever mortice lock with a thumb turn, or an equivalent, and the main exit doors and every room door onto a common area must open from inside without a key. Fire doors, where the house has them, have to be kept in full working order.

In practice that means fitting thumb-turn locks to bedroom doors, rehanging doors so they close fully into their frames with even gaps, and replacing damaged intumescent strips and smoke seals. Where a door is past saving we say so and quote for a replacement door set rather than patching it.

Moor Park: Metroland detail and the estate's interest

Three Rivers' appraisal for the Moor Park Conservation Area, adopted in 2006, picks out original features such as chimneys and warns householders against stripping them out. For joinery, that points towards repairing the original front doors, porches and windows on Moor Park's houses from the 1920s to the 1950s rather than swapping them for modern units. The private roads and the restrictive covenants are held by Moor Park (1958) Ltd, so any visible external change, a new porch or garden gate included, is worth checking against your deeds and with the estate company before we start.

Second stairs, loft hatches and storage in big houses

Large Northwood houses often have usable roof space reached by a narrow second stair, and long landings with deep cupboards. Typical jobs here are new handrails and balustrades where the old ones are loose or too low, loft hatches upgraded to insulated, draught-sealed units, boarded storage, and wardrobes built into alcoves and under eaves.

On an older staircase we keep sound newel posts and treads and fix the movement underneath, which is usually a loose wedge or a failed glue block. If the movement points to anything structural, we stop and tell you.

Joinery snags that hold up a re-let

Between tenancies the carpentry list in an HA6 let is usually short but blocks the next move-in: a door that will not latch, kitchen hinges pulled out of chipboard, a skirting knocked loose, a window that will not lock. We can work through it in the same window as the redecoration, with photographs before and after for the deposit file and a note of anything that needs another trade.

Official sources

• Hillingdon Council: Northwood-Frithwood Conservation Area leaflet
• Hillingdon Council: proposed HMO licensing conditions (Appendix 2 to the Cabinet report)
• Three Rivers District Council: Moor Park Conservation Area Appraisal (adopted November 2006)
• Moor Park (1958) Ltd: history of the estate
• Hillingdon Council: conservation areas in Hillingdon

Last reviewed October 2026 by EliteShires Property Services.