Mastic man in Saffron Walden

Mastic and sealant work in Saffron Walden

With around 300 listed buildings, Saffron Walden is one of the places where sealant work needs a lighter touch. A bathroom tucked into a jettied, timber-framed house moves in ways a modern one doesn’t, and the joint around an old window may sit against lime render that hard products would damage. Mr Mastic covers the town and the villages round it from our base in Crawley, and we take the time to choose the right product for each joint.

Most of our work here is still everyday resealing: baths, showers, basins and kitchen worktops where the old bead has gone black, split or lifted. We remove every trace of it, clean and dry the joint and lay a neat new bead. Where the colour matters, for example against a period-style suite or painted woodwork, we can match it; see our colour-matched resealing page.

Jettied houses, pargeting and later growth

The old town keeps its medieval bones. Bridge Street has ancient timber-framed houses, some with jettied upper floors, and there is pargeting, the raised decorative plasterwork Essex is known for, on gables in the High Street. The Sun Inn, of 14th-century origin, carries 17th-century plasterwork with figures and foliage. Around them, the High Street has late-Georgian and Victorian buildings, and the Italianate Corn Exchange of 1848 now houses the library.

Timber frames flex with the seasons, so a stiff bead between a bath and a wall in an old house tears quickly. We use low-modulus sanitary silicone that can stretch, and around period windows we look at what the frame meets before choosing a sealant, because silicone can’t be painted and isn’t always the right answer next to traditional render.

The town has grown a good deal since. Housing estates expanded in the 1970s and 1980s as people moved in from the surrounding villages, and the population has roughly doubled in fifty years. New building continues: Bellway has submitted plans for Radwinter Gardens, 233 homes south of Radwinter Road. In new homes like those, builder sealant often needs redoing in the first year or two, and our new build mastic page covers what we check.

What we do in Saffron Walden

• Bathroom & kitchen resealing: Mouldy or split sealant around baths, shower trays, basins and sinks removed completely and replaced with a neat, hygienic bead.
• Window & door mastic: Hardened, gappy mastic around frames, sills and French or patio doors cut out and renewed to keep draughts and rain out.
• Commercial & hotel sealant: Guest bathrooms, staff washrooms and kitchens in commercial buildings resealed in a planned order that keeps the site running.
• Remedial sealant & repairs: Messy, layered or wrong-product sealant cut out and replaced with the right sealant, laid the right way.
• Fire-rated sealant: Intumescent and fire-rated joints around pipes, cables and frames, installed to the manufacturer’s tested specification.
• External & façade joints: Outside movement joints given new backing rod and a flexible, weatherproof sealant in a colour to match the wall.
• New-build mastic & snagging: Early-failing sealant in new homes fixed properly, plus mastic packages and snagging for developers.
• Floor & skirting joints: Skirting-to-floor gaps, tiled floor movement joints and concrete floor joints sealed with the right product.
• Regrouting: Cracked, stained or crumbling grout raked out and replaced, with corners resealed in silicone.
• Glazing & conservatory sealant: Glazing joints on conservatories, roof lanterns and screens renewed with a sealant suited to glass and frames.
• Gutter, fascia & soffit sealing: Gutter unions, outlets and fascia joints that leak in heavy rain cleaned and resealed.
• Sand mastic for sash & case windows: Traditional sand mastic for period windows and doors where a modern sealant would look out of place.

Choosing a mastic man in Saffron Walden

Old houses reward patience, and that is how we work. Mr Mastic brings over 20 years’ experience and more than 2,847 finished projects to Saffron Walden. We’re fully insured, we’re an ARBOMaster approved applicator, and we use Arbo and Everbuild products chosen for each joint. More than 180 customers have left five-star reviews, giving us a 4.9-star Google rating. The quote is agreed before we start, and a one-year guarantee follows every job.

Places we pass in Saffron Walden

For trains, Audley End station is closest to the centre. Well-known places nearby include Saffron Walden Museum (less than half a mile north-west). Closer in, we work on homes, rented flats and businesses near R A Butler Infant School, Saffron Walden County High School, Saffron Walden Baptist Church and Waggon And Horses Public House. Green spaces within reach include Hales and Shadwell Woods.