Croydon's housing comes in three layers, and each one fails differently
Croydon is not one kind of house. Inside CR0 there are Victorian bays in Addiscombe and Broad Green, interwar semis out towards Shirley, and a Fairfield ward that is mostly flats: glaziers in Croydon meet all three in a week. JM Glass & Glazing work out of 24 Waddon Close in Waddon, CR0 4JT, a mile and a half from East Croydon: re-glazed sashes, failed double glazed units, toughened panels for communal doors.
Croydon is not one kind of house. Inside CR0 you get three build eras sitting almost on top of each other, and a glazier who treats them the same makes a mess of at least two. The 1960s office core sits in the middle of the lot, which is why the same van can do a sash window in Addiscombe in the morning and an entrance screen off George Street after lunch. Here is what each layer actually brings us out for.
Victorian and Edwardian bays: Addiscombe, Broad Green, Woodside and Waddon
The streets around the town centre and out through Addiscombe and Broad Green are dense bay-fronted terraces with larger Victorian villas mixed in, and an unusual number of those villas were carved into flats years ago. That changes the job. It gets sold flat by flat rather than whole house, and half the time the sash we are looking at belongs to one owner while the bay it sits in belongs to three. Behind those bays there are still original timber box sashes: broken cords, rotten bottom rails, putty gone to dust, a single pane rattling in the frame. We re-glaze sashes and cut new panes to sit in the existing beads. Where the timber is sound, a slimline sealed unit can often go into the original sash rather than the whole window coming out.
1930s semis and Croydon's flats: Shirley, Spring Park, Fairfield and New Addington
Head east past Lloyd Park and the stock changes completely. Shirley, Monks Orchard, Spring Park and outer Waddon are almost solid interwar semi-detached housing, with canted and square bays under half-timbered gables. Two things bring us out there. Leaded lights and Crittall-style steel windows are reaching the end of their life, so we get cracked quarries, failed cames and rusted steel that has bowed a frame out of square. Those steel frames were never built to take a sealed unit either, which is why so many Shirley front rooms are still single glazed. The other job is the bays themselves: a bay is structural, so re-glazing one that has dropped is not the same job as a flat opening. We measure a bay before quoting, not after.
Then there is the third Croydon. Fairfield ward is close to seven in ten flats, and Saffron Square and Altitude 25 have only added to that. Put the Wates-built estate at Park Hill and the out-county estate at New Addington alongside it and a good share of the borough's glazing is flat glazing: communal entrance doors with toughened panels, stairwell and landing glass, bedroom windows four floors up. We ask about the floor, the access and whether there is a concierge before we load the van, because turning up blind at a block wastes your morning and ours. These are the calls we get most often across CR0.
- Misted double glazing. The most common call in Croydon by a distance. The seal has failed, not the window. We take the sizes off the blown unit and fit a new one into the same frame, see double glazed unit replacement.
- Cracked and broken panes. Windows, doors, side panels and internal glass. That is straight glass replacement, measured on site.
- Windows that will not shut or lock. Hinges, handles and mechanisms, under window repairs, which is usually cheaper than a new frame.
- Glass cut to size. Shelves, table tops, cabinet glass, picture glass and made-to-measure mirrors, cut to your dimensions.
- Break-ins and accidental damage. Board up first, glass after. That is the emergency glazier side of the work.
Croydon is the largest commercial centre in south London, and the work reflects it. North End has been pedestrianised since 1989, with the Whitgift Centre and Centrale either side of it and the restaurants down South End. Beyond the core the parades run for miles: London Road through Broad Green and West Croydon, Lower Addiscombe Road, Wickham Road, Shirley Road, and the retail strip along Purley Way past Valley Park, the Colonnades and Airport House. When shop glass goes, the shop cannot trade.
Shop front glass and the CR0 parades
A shop front is not a big version of a house window. It is usually large toughened or laminated glass in an aluminium frame, and it has to be made safe before anything else happens. We board up, take the sizes, order the pane and come back to fit it. Toughened and laminated glass is cut and processed to order, so the honest answer on timing is that the board-up happens quickly and the glass follows once it has been made. More on shop front glass replacement.
Offices, partitions and a roof light Edge picked out
The 1960s towers around Wellesley Road and George Street are still full of tenants, No. 1 Croydon on the station approach among them. Offices bring different glass again: entrance screens, toughened door panels, internal partitions and manifestation. Bigger glazing goes the same way. Edge Building Products named a roof light refurbishment of ours their Installation of the Month for July 2025, 44 shaped double-glazed units set into Edge 50mm capped aluminium glazing bars. That is a supplier writing about a job rather than a trade badge, but it is real work and it is the sort we take on. See glass projects and balustrades.
Conservation areas and Article 4, check before you order windows
Parts of Croydon are not free to re-window as you please. The Chatsworth Road conservation area carries an Article 4 direction, made on 21 January 2016, that removes permitted development rights for alterations to a house: windows, roof alterations, porches, fences, hardstanding and even repainting the outside. In practice that means a planning application before the windows change. The East India Estate conservation area in Addiscombe, designated in March 2008, covers the Victorian streets on the old East India Company seminary land, where repair and re-glazing is nearly always the sensible answer. Central Croydon, Croydon Minster, Church Street and Wellesley Road (North) cover the Old Town and the civic core, where shop fronts and upper-floor glazing are controlled. We are glaziers, not planners. We will tell you when a job looks like one for the council first, and re-glazing an existing frame usually keeps you out of that conversation.
Getting to you from Waddon
We are at 24 Waddon Close, CR0 4JT, a couple of minutes off Purley Way and roughly a mile and a half from East Croydon station. The town centre, Broad Green, Woodside and Addiscombe are a short run. Shirley and Monks Orchard are a bit further east past Lloyd Park. New Addington, Addington Village and Forestdale are the long end of the borough: call it twenty minutes on a clear road, more when the A232 is queuing. We aim to make a property safe the same day where we can, and if we cannot reach you we will say so on the phone rather than leave you waiting in.
Glazing services we provide in Croydon
The glazing we do most often across Croydon, with the detail on each one.
Areas near Croydon
We also cover South Croydon, Purley, Sanderstead, Selsdon, Beckenham, West Wickham. See every area on our areas covered page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Based in Croydon. We work from 24 Waddon Close, CR0 4JT, just off Purley Way and about a mile and a half from East Croydon station. Your call is not passed on to whoever happens to be nearest. Croydon is where we are, and most of any given week's work is inside CR0 or the postcodes next to it.
Ring the mobile on 07956 138 582 and describe the damage. We aim to make a property safe the same day where we can, and if we cannot get to you we will tell you rather than leave you waiting. Board-up comes first, then measuring, then the glass once it is cut. Most CR0 addresses are a short run from Waddon.
Not without permission, in most cases. Chatsworth Road has an Article 4 direction made on 21 January 2016 that removes permitted development rights for alterations to a house, windows included, so a planning application is normally needed before they change. Re-glazing the existing frames is a different matter and usually avoids it. Check with Croydon Council planning before ordering anything.
Usually not. Misting means the seal on the double glazed unit has failed and moisture has got between the panes. The frame is normally sound. We take the sizes off the failed unit and fit a new one into the same frame, which costs a fraction of a full window. The Shirley, Spring Park and Monks Orchard semis are full of them.
Yes. Shop fronts are a large part of our commercial work in CR0: the parades on London Road, Lower Addiscombe Road and Wickham Road, the units around North End and South End, and the Purley Way retail strip. Toughened and laminated glass is made to order, so we board up first and fit the new pane once it arrives.
Yes. New Addington, Addington Village and Forestdale are the far end of the borough from Waddon, roughly twenty minutes on a clear road and longer if the A232 is busy. It is still CR0 and still our patch. Same goes for Monks Orchard and Spring Park over towards the Beckenham boundary.
Yes. A lot of it goes into flats: communal entrance doors, stairwell and landing panels, and low-level glass in the blocks around Fairfield, Saffron Square and Altitude 25. We also cut toughened panes for shop doors on North End and the London Road parades. Toughened glass is processed to order and cannot be cut on site, so a broken door is boarded first and glazed once the pane is made. Tell us the floor and the access when you ring.
We replace glass, not windows. In most Croydon houses the frame is sound and only the sealed unit or the pane has failed, so we measure it, order it and fit it into the frame you already have, quicker and cheaper than a new window. In the Addiscombe and Broad Green sashes a slimline unit can often go into the original timber. If the frame itself has rotted through, you need a replacement-window company; we are not one.