New cladding installation in Loughton, Essex

Here at Summit Cladding we are always keen to take on a challenge, especially when the property is a bit unconventional.

This latest cladding installation job was in Loughton, Essex, and involved what’s known as a BISF house. The letters stand for British Iron and Steel Federation and, as the name suggests, the house has a steel frame, not conventional brickwork.

Tens of thousands of BISF houses were built in the 1940s and 50s to cope with the shortage of housing facing returning servicemen and their families who’d been bombed out of their homes during World War 2.

A simple and quick solution

They were designed to be simple and cheap to build, as a quick solution to an urgent problem. But this in turn created problems for the future. These houses had generally poor insulation and potential structural issues with metal corrosion. Those in private hands were hard to insure and mortgage and, as such, were often difficult to sell.

But our client, Lorraine, was happy in her BISF house. She just felt it needed a bit of love and attention to remove some of the decaying and dated original features, and Summit were on hand to help after being recommended by a colleague.

Treating the metal framework

Our first task was to apply a specialist paint treatment to the metalwork, where there were some signs of corrosion. With the supporting frame made good, we worked through our programme of renovation and improvements. These were:

• Fitting treated timber battens to all the fascias, soffits and elevations of the house.
• Adding white PVC fascias and soffits to the roofline, with anthracite grey gutters and downpipes.
• Fitting Hardieplank cladding with a James Hardie ventilation system to the upper walls.
• Removing the original roof over the bay window and replacing with a new timber-frame and welded lead roof.
• Removing the flat roof over the front door and replacing it with a bespoke pitched roof canopy.

Another happy Summit client

A great deal of design and planning went into this project but as the pictures demonstrate, the result is truly remarkable. Our client, Lorraine, was overwhelmed by the transformation of her home. It just goes to prove that a house originally built as a quick fix can still have life in it 80 years later.

Categorised in: Cladding, James Hardie Cladding

This post was written by Summit Cladding