Park Lane – Full External Refurbishment

This sizeable imposing period building on Park Lane, overlooking Hyde Park, needed a complete external refurbishment. The paintwork was peeling from the walls, and there had been numerous leaks from the many cracks, impacting the front and rear internal walls. Emergency scaffolding showed the extent of the deterioration – a large plant was growing out of the cornice, and one of the dentils had fallen directly onto the pavement.

The External Refurbishment Process by Chambré

The property has three external walls directly onto roads – one extremely narrow, with the front being a TFL red route. Each side was scaffolded individually to minimise disruption to the occupants so that we could concentrate on all the required masonry repairs. It had been more than 20 years since there had been a thorough overhaul, and previous fillers had been plaster based rather than traditional lime mortar.

Seventy new dentils had to be made and fixed by the stonemason, along with extensive repairs to the ornate cornice above the third floor. One hundred thirty linear metres of helibars repaired the cracks, and over a hundred square metres of render was replaced along with the lead to the front ledge under the fourth-floor windows.

Two conservatories had their rooves overhauled, the roof was re-covered, and the beads between the panes were replaced. We removed two extremely large redundant AC condensers from the front basement area, and the space underneath the steps was made into a useful bike store for residents. We also removed the decorative fountain in front of the basement entrance which had seen better days. The area was tiled in granite to match the rest of the frontage and all chemically cleaned.