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Have you ever wondered about the best time of year to renovate? Many people think it should be done during the summer, but that’s not necessarily the case.
Is it better to renovate in winter or summer?
Once you’ve designed your renovation and created a budget, you’ll need to decide when to get started.
It all depends on your contractor. If you’re using a highly-skilled contractor, it’s usually up to them when work begins, and you may need to work around their availability. Make sure to source your finishes from an online bathroom supplier too.
Summer is usually the busiest time for contractors, partly because construction workers also want to take their holidays over this time.
There are, however, a few renovation elements that will also help you determine the best time to renovate.
1. Timber Frames
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If your renovation work includes working on a timber frame, there’s likely to be a high wood moisture content. This won’t be too much of a problem, though, even in the winter. If you’re just starting to put up brickwork, the ice should soon melt, and your frames will dry out, just a little slower than it would during the warmer months.
Just be aware that sometimes, when timber has absorbed moisture, it expands. So, where the timber has been soaked through with rainwater, it may well shrink once it dries out and that could cause a couple of superficial cracks along your wall joints.
2. Groundwork
If you thought that groundwork, like drainage, foundations and site clearance was better done in summer, think again. These types of tasks actually work best in the winter months.
When it comes to clearing your site, it’s just easier in colder conditions when most the vegetation has died off and there’s just less to actually clear. It also works out well to dig foundation trenches in cooler weather as they’re a lot less likely to cave in due to the stiffness from the frost.
3. Brickwork
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When the bricks are wet, they’re pretty difficult to lay and won’t look as neat and tidy. And, when the rain falls soon after laying bricks, the water can wash out some mortar.
Bricklaying seems to be the area most affected by rain as there are different stages of the project that require bricklaying. To keep up with your renovation schedule, even during periods of rainy weather, you could look at different ways to protect your bricks from the rain.
For example, investing in tarpaulin sheeting will help cover the scaffolding and also weatherproof your building work to keep the wet weather out.
Summer Or Winter?
As you can see, while some types of weather can affect some aspects of your renovation projects, it’s not really something you need to be overly concerned about. What’s more, weather is simply unreliable, even if you start working in the summer for the warmer, drier weather, there’s no guarantee it’s going to be like that throughout your renovation.
Fortunately, our weather is fairly mild throughout the year, making it much easier to work around unexpected conditions without too much delay to your renovation.
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This article is published in partnership of Media Buzzer.