Renovation covers a lot of ground, from opening up a cramped ground floor to taking a tired property back to brick and rebuilding it properly. What the good ones have in common is a builder who works out the structure before the finishes, and who tells you what's behind the wall before you have committed to a kitchen.
HD Building Services carries out full property renovations, structural alterations and general brickwork across Norwich and Norfolk. We manage the whole job and the trades within it, so you deal with one person from first visit to final sign-off. Fully insured, 5★ on Google, 10/10 on Checkatrade from 17 verified reviews.
What we take on
Structural alterations, done properly
Taking a wall out is the single most commonly botched job in domestic building. It's not complicated work, but it's unforgiving, and the consequences of getting it wrong show up as cracked ceilings, sticking doors and dropped floors above, sometimes months later.
- Establish what's load-bearing first. Not every wall that looks structural is, and not every wall that looks like a partition isn't. We check what's bearing on it above, including floor joist direction and any wall in the storey above.
- Get an engineer's calculation. Beam sizes come from a structural engineer, not from guesswork or from what was used on the last job. Building control will want those calculations too.
- Proper temporary support. Acrow props and strongboys correctly positioned and needled through before anything comes out. This is the stage where corners get cut.
- Correct padstones and bearings. The beam has to land on something capable of taking the point load. Concrete padstones sized to the calculation, not a couple of engineering bricks.
- Fire protection and building regs sign-off. Steels need appropriate fire protection, and the work needs building control inspection and certification, which your solicitor will ask for when you sell.
A frequent one, and often done wrong. Removing a chimney breast on the ground floor leaves the stack above it needing support: designed gallows brackets or a beam, not whatever the last person did. Unsupported stacks are a standard survey flag and a real safety issue. If we find one when we open up, we'll tell you.
Brickwork and external works
Bricklaying is where the business started and it's still the core of what we do. Garden and boundary walls with proper foundations, movement joints and coping; retaining walls designed for the load and drained behind rather than built and hoped for; piers, steps, planters and garden structures.
On older property we work in lime rather than cement where the wall calls for it. See lime mortar repointing for why that matters. On modern brickwork we match brick, bond and joint so repairs and extensions read as part of the original.
Cavity wall tie replacement
Common in Norfolk housing stock from roughly the 1920s to the 1970s, where the original galvanised or black ash ties corrode and expand. The classic symptoms are regular horizontal cracking at roughly every sixth course, bulging outer leaves, and doors or windows going out of square.
Left alone it gets worse, because the expanding tie physically lifts the brickwork. Replacement involves installing new stainless ties on a designed pattern, isolating or removing the old ones, and then making good the brickwork and pointing. It's disruptive but much cheaper than rebuilding an outer leaf.
How a renovation runs
- Free site visit and honest assessment. Including telling you where we think the money is best spent and where it's not.
- Written itemised quote. Broken down by element so you can see the cost of each part and adjust scope if you need to.
- Sequencing. Structure and services before finishes; roof and weathertightness before anything internal. A surprising amount of wasted money in renovation comes from doing things in the wrong order.
- Trades managed by us. Electricians, plumbers, plasterers, roofers, all coordinated so they turn up in the right order and you're not the project manager.
- Regular updates. You'll know what's happening this week and next. If something changes, you hear it early and in writing.
- Clean handover. Snagged, certificated where relevant, and the site left tidy.