Durham, NC

Working in Durham

Durham has the oldest housing stock we work on regularly, and the highest proportion of houses that have been renovated by somebody who was not a contractor. Both facts shape almost every job here. The mill houses and early twentieth century neighbourhoods around the centre are solid buildings that have absorbed a century of alterations, and the alterations are what we spend our time on.

The older neighbourhoods

Trinity Park, Old West Durham, Watts-Hillandale, Duke Park and Forest Hills are largely pre-1940. Expect knob-and-tube wiring surviving in a wall somewhere even where the panel has been replaced, galvanised supply pipe that has narrowed to a fraction of its bore, plaster over lath rather than drywall, and original single-glazed windows that owners are usually right to want to repair rather than replace.

Two things come up so often they are worth planning for. The first is that nothing is square, so cabinetry, trim and door work are scribed to fit rather than dropped in, and that is labour rather than material. The second is that opening a wall in a house this old frequently reveals a previous repair that has to be dealt with before the intended work continues. We survey for that and we quote a contingency rather than discovering it on day three and asking for more money.

Several of these neighbourhoods sit in local historic districts. Exterior changes visible from the street can require review, and the timeline for that review is not ours to compress. We will tell you at survey whether your address is affected.

Hope Valley, Woodcroft and the south

Hope Valley is 1920s and 30s houses on large lots, mature trees, and slate or tile roofs that need a roofer who has worked on them before. Woodcroft and the developments toward Southpoint are 1980s and 90s, which puts them squarely in the replacement cycle: original HVAC long gone, second-generation systems now aging, and roofs at or past twenty years.

Trees, and what they do

Durham's tree cover is the best in the Triangle and the hardest on buildings. Mature willow oaks and pines mean gutters that fill within weeks of being cleared, roof valleys that hold debris and stay damp, shaded north-facing slopes that grow algae, and roots finding the joints in clay sewer laterals. If your drain blocks on a predictable annual cycle, that is almost certainly the cause, and a camera inspection is the cheapest way to find out how bad it has become.

Getting to you

The whole city is inside our 90 minute emergency target and there is no travel fee. The 15-501 and I-40 corridors carry our crews in from Morrisville; a call from the north of the city at rush hour is our slowest realistic drive anywhere in the full-coverage area, and we will say so when we book rather than quote you a target we can see we will miss.