Hazlemere Window Company Ltd Help Out on a DIY SOS Big Build Project in Welwyn Garden City

Hazlemere Window Company Ltd Help Out on a DIY SOS Big Build Project in Welwyn Garden City

One day about 5 years ago Midwife Sascha Koutrouza came home to her home in Welwyn Garden City with a throat infection that sadly changed everything in her life forever. Doctors believe the throat infection caused her immune system to over-respond, leaving her with permanent kidney disease. She was reassured that it would be decades before she needed treatment, but unfortunately Sascha’s symptoms grew rapidly. In just six months, Sascha had final stage kidney disease requiring hospital dialysis at least 4 days a week. Family weekends for Sascha were spent feeling sick and exhausted. She kept on going for the sake of her family – never complaining; but they were reaching all at the point of breaking and were naturally concerned for her future. The main hope was home dialysis – but this hope was dashed when she was told there wasn’t the space at home for this to happen. Mr Andrew Koutrouza and the extended family simply could not afford the extension, which is when DIY SOS got involved: A single-storey extension would create the space needed for the NHS to provide an ‘at-home’ (specific to Sascha’s type of kidney treatment) dialysis system for daily home treatment. The build would turn everything around for this family and mark a vital step in Sascha regaining her life.
The BBC put out an appeal on Facebook for tradesmen and materials, and given GGF Members Hazlemere Window Company Ltd have a showroom in Welwyn Garden City, they decided they would supply and fit all the new and replacement windows and doors needed on the project. So for one whole week last year four of Hazlemere’s most experienced craftsmen gave up a week of their time to install new windows and doors. The Hazlemere team consisted of Senior Installer John Layton, Installation Manager Alan Layton, Operations Director Jason Bradshaw and Fitter Michal Kowalczyk. The team from Hazlemere Window Company worked their socks off throughout the entire Big Build week, fitting new windows and doors, whether as replacement windows and doors or new windows and doors into new builders openings.

Thanks to the generosity of aluminium and PVCu window and door manufacturers, GGF Members Conservatory Outlet of Wakefield in Yorkshire, and double glazed sealed unit manufacturers Nicholls and Clarke of Fareham in Hampshire, FENSA Registered Installers (No. 10589) Hazlemere Window Company were able to procure the glass, window and door frames from these suppliers at cost, which meant they were able to donate all the products and their labour free of charge to the Welwyn Garden City family in need, being helped out by DIY SOS to give them a brighter future. Consequently, Hazlemere sincerely thank both the Conservatory Outlet and Nicholls and Clarke for playing no small part in enabling the lives of this needy family to be transformed.

As part of the transformation project, Hazlemere Windows were asked to survey, supply and install white A+ energy rated PVCu double glazed windows throughout the house and also in the new extension that was built by the DIY SOS team and all the other tradesmen, and suppliers who had also given their time and resources to the cause. In addition Hazlemere supplied and fitted a double glazed aluminium bi-folding door to the extension built by the DIY SOS team, enabling Sascha’s family to open up her new living space, as and when the weather allows! The DIY SOS programme, showing how this Hertfordshire home in the Knightsfield area of Wewlyn Garden City was totally transformed was first broadcast live by the BBC 1 at 9pm on Thursday 15th June 2017.