Sixty-year-old houses and the doors that came with them
Most of Scarborough was built between 1955 and 1975: bungalows, backsplits and sidesplits on wide lots, with brick fronts and aluminum storm doors. Those houses sit on clay. Clay moves with the wet and the dry, and after six decades of small movement the frames are no longer square. That is why the latch misses the strike plate, and why the bottom corner of the door drags on the sill.
Fixing it is rarely a new door. Usually it is shimming a hinge, moving a strike plate a few millimetres, easing an edge and putting fresh weather stripping in. Sliding patio doors are the same story with different parts: worn rollers, a track full of grit and a lock that no longer lines up. Both are an afternoon of work, not a project.
Decks, fences and the outdoor list
Wide lots mean fences, and fences here take a beating. Frost lifts posts over the winter, gates drop and stop latching, and a few boards go soft every year. Deck work is similar: lifted boards, loose railings and stairs that have gone springy underfoot. I repair what can be repaired rather than push a rebuild, and I say plainly when a structure is past the point where a repair makes sense.
Outdoor work is worth booking before the weather turns. Paint and exterior caulking need reasonable temperatures to cure, so September is an easier month than November for anything on the outside of the house.
Apartments, towers and townhouse complexes
Scarborough has a lot of rental towers from the sixties and seventies along Kingston Road, Markham Road and Victoria Park, plus newer condo blocks near Scarborough Town Centre. Concrete walls need masonry anchors. Units in older buildings often have doors and cabinets that have been painted so many times the hardware barely moves, and a careful strip and adjustment brings them back. Townhouse complexes usually have their own rules about exterior work, so it is worth checking with the corporation before I quote.
Small jobs, long lists and bigger projects
A typical week's list looks something like this:
- Patio slider rollers and track cleaning
- Front door weather stripping and lock alignment
- TV mounting on brick and concrete walls
- Flat-pack wardrobes and bed frames built
- Toilet, faucet and shower head replacements
- Laminate flooring and baseboards in basements
- Backsplash tiling and kitchen cabinet hardware
Batching pays off. Five small jobs in one visit beats five separate visits, and I would rather price the whole list at once than one item at a time. Bigger work runs over several days: a bathroom refresh, a basement floor, a full round of doors through a house.
Anything that needs a new circuit, a panel, gas or a structural change goes to a licensed trade, and I will tell you that up front. Replacing an existing fixture, switch, faucet or toilet is my work. I reply to most requests within one business day and work Monday to Saturday, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, with Sunday by appointment.
