Building care on a fee · Ackworth, West Yorkshire
Stone, kept
Gritstone in this part of Yorkshire is laid once and then kept for generations. It weathers, it is opened up, it is repointed, and it stands sound again. KENYON PROPERTIES YORKSHIRE LTD does that keeping for houses and small blocks of flats that belong to someone else.
The work is the building
Its fabric, its installations, its safety checks and its shared parts, looked after on the owner’s behalf and followed through over years rather than visits. Finding the people who live there, and anything to do with a sale, stays with the owner.
Work out a home’s check datesA picture made for this page, not a building in our care.
LaidThe first months with a building
A building comes into our care the way a wall is set out: from the bottom course up, with nothing taken on trust.
First walk-round
Every element seen and photographed, from the chimney to the cellar steps, so that later change has something to be measured against.
Papers gathered
The gas safety record, the electrical report, the energy certificate, the alarm tests and, for a block, the fire risk assessment: what exists, what is missing, what has run out.
Brought into date
Whatever is due is booked with a registered engineer before it lapses.
First fixes
Anything that cannot wait is made safe and put right first.
A settled rhythm
Seasonal walk-rounds and every check date, kept for as long as the building is in our care.
WeatheredWhat the seasons leave on a building
No building stands still. Frost works into hard cement joints and lifts the face of the stone beside them. Cold walls and closed windows bring condensation from autumn to spring. A storm loosens what was sound the week before.
So each season has its own walk-round, and what it finds is written into the building’s history with the date it was seen.
- Before the cold
- Heating serviced; exposed pipes and outside taps protected from frost.
- After a storm
- Ridge, chimney, flashings and fences, and anything that moved.
- Spring
- Pointing, sills and stacks looked at once the winter is out.
- Summer
- The dry months for stonework, window repairs and paint.
Opened upA fault, followed to its cause
When something goes wrong, the useful question is where it comes from, not what it looks like. A report is followed through eight steps, and what goes into the building’s history is the cause, not only the symptom.
- ReportedWhat, where, and since when.
- SortedEmergency, urgent or routine: our own convention, explained to whoever reported it.
- Made safeIsolated, contained or protected before anything else.
- TracedReadings, the roof space, the pipework, the stone.
- InstructedThe right registered trade for the job.
- Put rightThe repair itself.
- CheckedLooked at again once it has had time to fail.
- Written downCause, work and date, kept with the building.
Damp shows why the order matters. Condensation, damp coming in from outside, rising damp and a leaking pipe can look alike on a wall, and each needs a different remedy, so the source is found before anything is treated.
How faults and damp are handled
RepointedKept, one joint at a time
A wall in this district tells most of its story at the joints. We notice, open up and arrange; the stonework itself is done by masons we instruct, and we come back to look at it afterwards.
- Laid
The joints are softer than the stone, as they should be: the mortar takes the weather so the stone does not have to.
- Weathered
Soot darkens the face. An old repair in hard cement holds moisture against the stone, and the next frost lifts the stone’s face instead of the joint.
- Opened up
The cement is raked out by hand, back to sound material, without widening the joint or nicking the arrises.
- Repointed
Lime mortar, matched to the old in colour and in strength, pressed in one joint after another.
- Sound again
The wall can dry out through its joints once more, and it goes on the list for the next look.
Sound againShared stairs, empty rooms and the people at home
Shared stairs are walked first.
The shared parts of small blocks
Cleaning, lighting, fire doors and their closers, communal windows, bin stores and paths. In any building with two or more flats, residents must be given information about fire doors, and we keep it in front of them.
Between one household and the next
When a home falls empty it is checked, its safety checks are brought into date, any works are done and it is cleaned, ready for whatever the owner arranges next.
The people who live there
One route for reporting a fault, at least 24 hours’ notice in writing before anyone calls to look at the condition of a home, and a plain account of what happens next.
Blocks, common parts and empty homesThe keepA portal for owners and residents
Sign in to keep a building’s homes and their check dates between visits. The next dates are worked out on the server by the rules on Kept in date, and anything falling due within 90 days is set out first, across every building. Someone living in a home, given its code by the owner, can report a fault there and follow it along the eight steps: it starts at Reported and moves only when the company moves it.
The next lookWhere we work, and how to begin
KENYON PROPERTIES YORKSHIRE LTD is based in Ackworth and means to look after buildings in the villages and towns around it:
- Ackworth
- Featherstone
- Purston Jaglin
- Pontefract
- Darrington
- Hemsworth
- South Elmsall
- South Kirkby
- Upton
- Castleford
- Knottingley
- Normanton
- Wakefield
We are a new company, so there is no portfolio to point at; this site sets out method instead. Every property manager in England must belong to a government-approved redress scheme before taking on work (SI 2014/2359, article 5). We will join one before we take on any building, and name it here once we have.
A first conversation is about the building: what it is, how many homes it holds, which papers exist and which have run out.
Write to the company at
tenants@