Century-Home Small Repairs · Cambridge
Century-Home Small Repairs in Galt and Cambridge
A century home in Galt is not broken. It has been moving for a hundred years and it will keep moving. The repairs that last are the ones that account for that.
Galt's older streets, on both sides of the Grand and up the hill toward the older blocks around Dickson Park and Soper Park, are some of the best brick housing in the Region. They were built by people who knew what they were doing. They have also spent a century settling, drying, swelling and shifting on clay and on the river's water table. That is why the same small problems show up in nearly every one of them, and why the fix that works in a 1990s house does not work here.
Doors that stick, rub or will not latch
The commonest call. A solid wood door that was fine in winter rubs the top of the jamb by August. Sometimes the wood has swelled and a careful plane on the right edge fixes it. More often the frame itself has racked as the house moved, the hinge screws have worked loose in a hundred-year-old jamb, or the strike plate is now a quarter inch off. The fix is resetting hinges with longer screws into the framing, moving or filing the strike, and planing only as a last resort, because you cannot put the wood back. Pocket doors that have jumped their track and transom windows painted shut are the same category of job.
Plaster cracks and loose plaster
Lath-and-plaster walls crack along the lath lines, at the corners of doors and windows, and where the house flexes. Filling and painting a crack is a spring job that comes back the next spring. A repair that holds means cutting the crack back, checking whether the plaster around it is still keyed to the lath, re-anchoring loose sections with plaster washers or adhesive where it is worth saving, taping with mesh and skimming. Where a section has let go completely it gets cut out and patched with drywall of the right thickness, then feathered so the joint does not show. Sagging ceilings are a different conversation and sometimes a plasterer or renovation question rather than a handyman one; you will be told which.
Original sash windows
Double-hung wood windows with weights and cords are worth keeping. The usual list is broken sash cords, sashes painted shut, missing or hardened glazing putty, no weatherstrip, and sash locks that no longer meet. Cords get replaced, sashes freed and eased, putty renewed, spring-bronze or pile weatherstrip added, and storms fitted for winter. That gets a window working and stops most of the draft. Full restoration of rotted sills or replacement windows is a bigger job than a handyman visit, and if that is what the window needs, you will hear it.
Trim, baseboard and hardware nobody makes
Ten-inch baseboard, plinth blocks, rosettes, casing profiles from 1900: the building supply does not carry them. Small runs can be matched by combining stock profiles, scribing to a floor that is not level, and filling and painting so the joint disappears. Original hardware, mortise locks, glass knobs, rim latches and cast hinges can usually be cleaned, adjusted and made to work again rather than replaced. Where a piece is missing, salvage and reproduction hardware exists and can be fitted.
Stairs, railings and floors
Loose treads, squeaks, a newel post that wobbles, a handrail that has pulled its brackets out of plaster: all straightforward, all worth doing before someone falls. Old floors that dip toward the middle of the house are structural history rather than a defect, but thresholds and transitions can be eased so they stop catching feet.
What a century home sends to a licensed trade
These houses often still have some knob-and-tube or ungrounded wiring, and any electrical work, including replacing a fixture or a receptacle, is for a licensed electrical contractor working with the Electrical Safety Authority. Galvanized supply lines and cast-iron drains are a licensed plumber's territory once the work goes behind a wall. A gas fireplace insert in an old chimney is TSSA-licensed gas fitter work. Anything on the exterior of a designated heritage property may need the City of Cambridge involved first. Interior small repairs almost never do.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my door only stick in summer?
Humidity. Solid wood swells in a Cambridge summer and shrinks in a heated winter, and in an old frame that has racked, the clearance is already tight. The right fix is usually resetting hinges and the strike so the door has room year-round, and only planing where nothing else works.
Can plaster be repaired or does it have to come down?
Most of it can be repaired if it is still keyed to the lath. Cracks get cut back, taped and skimmed; loose sections get re-anchored or cut out and patched. Plaster that is sagging or crumbling across a whole ceiling is beyond a handyman visit and you will be told that at the quote.
Is it worth keeping original wood windows?
Usually, yes. New cords, freed sashes, fresh putty, weatherstrip and a good storm window get most of the comfort back at a fraction of replacement cost, and the wood in those windows is better than what is sold now. Rotted sills or frames are a bigger job than this site covers.
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