Bakewell & Ashford In the Water | Window & Door Refurbishment & Painting

There's not many better jobs working outside than when you are in a peak district village or town refurbishing and painting windows & doors, especially when the sun decides to make an appearance.

Beautiful stone buildings, picturesque water fronts, wildlife and friendly locals stopping to chat. It's some of my favourite work.

Sadly for the last few years the weather has been unpredictable making it very difficult to find opportunities for all the outdoor jobs that need doing. Three years ago my diary was made up in the summer of 2/3rds outdoor work and the remaining indoors and that was tricky period to manage expectations with relentless and oppressive levels of rain. I was told it was the "el nino' weather pattern that we'd been experiencing and that the following summer was due to be the same. Since then I cautiously take on a few select outdoor jobs but often with the caveat that we don't know if the weather will behave itself and that around here it usually doesn't!

When I look around at a lot of stone buildings in these wonderful villages, I do see so many windows that are close to being too far gone without real intervention. A lot of decorators are limiting their outdoor work at the same time. Will we see a point where there's not enough trades people and dry days to prevent residents from needing to do far more costly replacements than they would presently need to do.

One year I saw a decorator I know painting whilst rain was drizzling down. He looked slightly embarrassed that I'd witnessed it. I'm sure that he wouldn't have done it unless it was the clients will to just get it done, I'd myself been gently letting customers know that it was hard to find any 'window of opportunity' with the constant rain.

Not only do you need it to be dry but you need to have a day or (ideally) two beforehand to dry out wood so that it's below 15% moisture, you then need to be sure that the days are dry during prep when you are exposing bare wood to the elements, to avoid a shower saturating the wood and preventing you from completing the painting aspect. In an ideal world you also don't want to be painting directly in the blazing sun either although you can use additives to stop paint drying too quickly on you.

It's a challenge but a rewarding one when you are able to carry out the work and leave a customer very happy with their now protected and beautiful windows and doors.

On these pictures Little Greene Intelligent Exterior Eggshell was used on the door and windows, it's a heritage paint for a reason, it remains more flexible than many other eggshell/satin paints. The UV protecting formula stops it from going brittle and cracking which happens because of the expansion and contraction of wood during different temperatures and air moisture levels.

Even with the intermittent weather, if you have windows or front doors that are in need of refurbishment, it's certainly worth contacting us before they become a bigger job, we will let you know where you would be in any queue and if there could be any delayed projects where we could fit you in.

Do use our contact form to get in touch to discuss further.