Window Sill Restoration in Carrickfergus

Yes. Carrickfergus is about 24 miles from our base in Glenavy, comfortably inside the area we cover, and we work there regularly.

Nothing extra. Carrickfergus sits within our normal working radius, so travel is not added to the quotation.

The town has a genuinely historic core with a conservation area around the castle and old town, Victorian and Edwardian property along the seafront and older streets, and extensive post-war estate housing behind. The defining factor for our work is the exposure: this is a seafront town and salt-laden air is hard on external surfaces.

No. Paint is a thin coloured film on the surface, which is why it fails from the top down and needs redoing every few years. This is a natural stone chip aggregate in a binder, trowel-applied at roughly one to two millimetres, so the colour and texture run through the material rather than sitting on top of it.

No. The system is designed for concrete, stone, render and masonry. uPVC is not a substrate it is intended to bond to, and we will not apply it to one and hope. If you have uPVC sills, uPVC sill covers are the usual route and that is a different trade.

The common causes of failure are coating over loose material, coating over a sill that has a live structural crack, or applying it in the wrong weather. All three are preparation and judgement issues rather than problems with the material, which is why we spend most of the job on preparation and why we will decline a sill that needs replacing.

We do not publish a lifespan figure, because we have not got long-term data on our own installations to stand over and we are not going to quote someone else's marketing number as if it were ours. What we can tell you factually is that the cured finish is water resistant and UV stable, so it does not have the repainting cycle a painted sill has.

It is priced per opening after we have looked at the sills, and the quotation is free. Cost is driven by how many windows you have, how wide the sills are, how much repair they need first, and whether first floor access needs equipment.

Usually one day for preparation and application on a standard house, occasionally two where sills need significant making good first or where there are a lot of openings. Then it needs to stay clear of rain for about twenty four hours, or nearer forty eight in cold or damp weather.

It can, but only in a settled spell. The material must not be applied in frost and must not take rain while it cures, so between roughly November and February we are working around the forecast and dates can move. We would rather reschedule than apply it in the wrong conditions.

Anything loose or lifting comes off, yes. Sound, well-adhered paint is cleaned and prepared rather than necessarily stripped to bare concrete. What we will not do is coat over paint that is already letting go, because the new finish would only be as good as the layer underneath it.

Stone chip finishes come in a range of natural granite tones, from pale silver-greys through mid greys to darker charcoal and warmer speckled blends. We will show you the actual options at the quotation stage, because a colour on a screen is not a colour on a sill.

Frames, glass and surrounding render are masked before any material goes near them. This is trowel work directly beneath a window, so masking is not optional and we do not treat it as such.

Usually, yes, and matching the sill detail across the whole elevation is a common reason people call us. It is worth mentioning at the quotation stage so we can look at the existing finish before choosing.

We do, though the economics are better across a full house because most of the cost is in setting up, masking and preparation rather than in the material. If you have one badly weathered sill it is still worth asking.