Fitting patio doors to a 1960s new-town house in CF10

1960s new-town homes on Cardiff's Edwardian and Victorian bay-fronted houses in Cathays and Roath streets share a specific set of quirks. Timber-frame walls mean the frame fixes to studs, not to masonry — survey before ordering long fixings. New-town estates are rarely restricted at the front-door level, though large glazing swaps sometimes need building regs sign-off for structural loading. Lintel and floor checked for level, track set with stainless packers, doors hung and aligned so they roll true under their own weight. External cill drips block with paint over the decades — raking them clean stops water sitting on the frame after install. Original front cills are usually blue engineering brick — leave them, drill through them for the frame fixings. Vaulted internal ceilings mean the crew works off a small tower for gable glazing — ground protection sheeting mandatory. Single day for a 2-panel slider, 1–2 days for French sets. Front door threshold sits on a York stone step in most cases — level it back to the tile line before the frame lands. Non-square reveals mean every frame is bespoke-scribed — templates rather than standard sizes. Timber-frame construction means fixings go into studs; we probe before drilling to locate them. Party wall proximity means neighbours hear the removal — we knock ahead and time the noisy hour to mid-morning. Where the original glazing bars were 22mm ovolo, we match printed bars to that width — not the modern 26mm default. Seafront elevations often benefit from a rain deflector bar over the composite door letter plate — standard spec here.