Fire-damaged house reinstatement, Burslem

A Stoke-on-Trent Council-owned bungalow in Burslem with severe fire damage. The fire had started in the living room and spread rapidly through the rest of the property. We don't know what caused it, what we do know is that thankfully no one was hurt. The kitchen was one of the few rooms that escaped lightly because the kitchen door had held the fire back resiliently.

The council needed the building put back together to their standard so it could be re-let. The brief HYPE usually delivers in this category is fire stopping and prevention, see the /fire-stopping-and-fire-safety service. This was the other side of the same problem: restoring a property after the fire had done its damage. We're equally happy to do that work.

A full restoration. Full rewire across the property, the electrics had been destroyed by the fire and smoke (you can see the scorched consumer-unit area in the build film). New gas system installed including a new, more efficient Vaillant boiler. New ceilings fitted where the fire had taken them down. Plastering and painting throughout. New uPVC windows replacing the badly burnt frames, the living-room window where the fire originated had been left charred and unsalvageable. New doors. Smoke alarms hard-wired into the ceilings as part of the fire-safety package.

Stoke-on-Trent Council adhere to specifics on property layout. They didn't want us to change the kitchen units, and they didn't want us to lay any carpets, both are their standing spec for their re-let properties. The kitchen had been the lightly-damaged room anyway, thanks to that fire-resistant kitchen door, so leaving the units in place was the right call.

Project completed ahead of schedule and on budget.

From a fire-damaged property unfit to live in, back to a home ready for its next tenants. The before-and-after on the windows alone tells the story: a badly charred frame replaced with crisp new uPVC; a soot-blackened ceiling rebuilt and a smoke alarm hard-wired into the new plasterwork.

The full restoration is documented end-to-end in the build film on HypeTV. John walks the property at the start to show the extent of the damage, then again at the finish to show the transformation. Bittersweet work, this one, lovely to hand the building back as a home, painful to think what nearly happened, but the kind of work HYPE is proud to take on.