Carpentry in Kent
Carpenter in
Folkestone.
Folkestone has changed a great deal in the last decade. Regeneration around the Creative Quarter and the harbour has brought a lot of large, long-neglected building back into use, and most of that means subdivision: turning one enormous house into four flats that each have to work and each have to comply.
What the housing stock is like
Our highest volume of conversion work, where first fix partitioning and compliant fire doors go in together.
- Dominant
Large Victorian terraces and villas
The Leas, Clifton Crescent and Castle Hill Avenue. Grand, tall, and the great majority already divided into flats.
- Common
Older harbour housing
The Old High Street and the lanes behind. Tighter, older and frequently irregular.
- Common
Interwar and post-war housing
Inland through Cheriton and Hawkinge. Conventional family stock.
What we are asked for most in Folkestone
- 01
Conversion partitions and door sets
The core Folkestone job. Forming new flat layouts inside a shell that was designed as one house.
- 02
Fire door installation to specification
Every conversion needs them and they are the item most often failed on handover, usually on gaps and ironmongery rather than the door.
- 03
Stair repair in subdivided houses
A flight built for one family now carries four households, and treads and nosings go first.
Turning one house into four
A conversion is a first fix and second fix job compressed together. New partitions have to land on something that will carry them, service routes have to be planned before anything is boarded, and every new opening needs a door set that will satisfy building control rather than merely fill the hole.
The complication in Folkestone is that these buildings have usually been altered before, often more than once and rarely with any record. We survey what is actually there before pricing, because a drawing of a Leas villa and the building itself are frequently two different things.
Stairs that now carry four households
A communal flight in a converted house takes several times the traffic it was built for. Treads wear through at the nosing, the flight starts to move, and what was a comfortable domestic staircase becomes a liability in a common part.
Replacement treads and risers on a sound carriage cost a fraction of a new flight and are usually the right answer. Where the carriage itself has gone, we will say so rather than patching over a structural problem in a shared escape route.
Where we work around Folkestone
We cover CT18 to CT20 and the surrounding villages. Every job starts with a free site visit and a written fixed quote, and the carpenter who measures it is the carpenter who builds and installs it.
- Sandgate
- Cheriton
- Hawkinge
- Hythe
- Capel-le-Ferne
- Elham
- Seabrook
Recent work
across the South East
Working in Folkestone
Yes, and it is one of our most common Folkestone jobs. Fitted to the door set specification with correct gaps, intumescent strips and fire rated ironmongery, with a photographic record per opening if you need one.
We can give an indicative figure, but on a Folkestone conversion we would rather come and look. These buildings have almost always been altered before and rarely match the drawing.
Usually. If the carriage is sound, replacement treads and risers cost far less than a new flight. If it is not, we will tell you, because it is an escape route.