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Home improvement guides
Practical, reviewed advice for planning repairs and projects, choosing the right pro and knowing what to ask before you hire.
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Window Replacement guide
Replacing the windows in a British home is a purchase with a paper trail attached. The units themselves are made to measure, the contract is often signed at your kitchen table rather than in a showroom, and the job…
10 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Window Repair guide
A great deal of what gets sold as window replacement in Britain is really window repair that nobody offered. A misted sealed unit, a dropped hinge, a perished gasket, a decayed cill on an otherwise sound timber sash, a…
11 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Window Glass Replacement guide
Misted double glazing is one of the most common complaints in British housing and one of the most commonly over-sold.
13 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Window Caulking guide
British tradespeople rarely say caulking. They say mastic, sealant or pointing, and the job is the line of flexible material that closes the gap between a window frame and the wall it sits in.
9 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Window Tinting guide
Window film on a British home is sold for four different reasons that get bundled into one word. Solar control film cuts heat and glare in a south-facing room or a conservatory.
9 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Energy-Efficient Windows guide
Buying energy-efficient windows in Britain means buying a number, and there are two numbers you are allowed to buy.
10 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Exterior Doors guide
An external door has more asked of it than any other single component in a British house. It has to keep weather out, hold heat in, resist someone trying to force it, let a wheelchair or a pushchair over the threshold,…
11 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Front Doors guide
The front door is the one part of a British house that every visitor touches and every passer-by judges. It also has an unusually long list of jobs: keeping out horizontal rain, holding heat in a draughty hallway,…
15 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Patio Doors guide
Patio doors is the phrase most British homeowners search for, but it covers three quite different products. French doors are a pair of hinged leaves, usually the neatest answer to a narrow opening in a Victorian or…
14 min read14 September 2026 - Guide
Sliding Doors guide
A sliding door solves one problem and creates three. It gives back the floor area a swinging leaf would have swept, which is why sliding doors turn up in narrow Victorian hallways, small en suites, loft conversions and…
8 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
French Doors guide
French doors are a pair of hinged glazed leaves that open from the middle, and in British houses they are usually not a replacement for anything. They are what a window becomes.
9 min read21 September 2026 - Guide
Interior Doors guide
Internal doors are the least regulated and most abused doors in a British house. A Victorian terrace still carries four-panel doors that have been painted shut, unscrewed, rehung the wrong way round and had their…
14 min read14 September 2026
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