The UK’s market leaderOast cowl repair, construction & restoration
Dude and Arnette are a fourth generation family business. Our team specialises in oast cowl repair, construction and maintenance. Wherever you live in the UK, if you have a building with an oast cowl (the distinctive chimneys on the top of oast houses) then it’s almost certain it will have been serviced by one of our family at some point in its life. From royalty to business and regular homeowners, we have been the go-to oast house repair company for over seven decades.
We offer complete oast cowl servicing, whether that be fully refurbishing, painting, providing replacement parts and professional cleaning. Our servicing also includes expert roofing maintenance, from structural support to small tile repairs, we’ve got you covered!
Get in touch to find out how we can help you.
As Featured In



Traditionally built wooden oast cowls
As a family business, we place great stock in values such as trust and integrity. Constructing oast cowls takes great skill and precision, and our team are all highly trained craftsmen. We’re proud that we don’t use subcontractors – we would never risk compromising the quality of our work or our reputation.
Oast cowl repair and maintenance
The longevity of your oast cowl is a passion of ours, we will help maintain and repair any damage to extend its life and avoid more expensive work in the future. Despite our keen sense of tradition(yes we have a thing or two to say about fibreglass Oast cowls), but we’re a very modern business and are committed to delivering quality work while minimising cost for our clients.
Our Testimonials
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They really are the absolute experts in this
We’ve used Dude and Arnette to repair and maintain our Oast House cowl for many years now. They really are the absolute experts in this, do excellent work, and are a very friendly and highly professional team.
Bryan Miller
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they clearly know their stuff
Darren and his team did a great job replacing our cowl - they clearly know their stuff and the work done was of excellent quality. Darren is easy to deal with and we would highly recommend using him.
Kate Ky
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Darren, his son Brandon, and their carpentry team did a stellar restoration of our Oast cowl.
The cowl was rotten as it had not been well maintained: the rotting wood could be seen from the ground.
The repair work took about 3 weeks - perfectly reasonable for the various coats of paint that go on top of new timber.
We are very happy with the results and will be using D&A for future maintenance.
It was astonishing to see them at work removing and refitting: fearless at such a height.
Tom Carew Hunt
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Excellent servicing of the cowls of our oast house.
Darren, Brandon and the team manually removed all three cowls (we have no access for a cherry picker/crane), meticulously restored them to their full glory, then reinstalled them using just manpower and ropes. Very impressive to watch and amazing to have such a friendly team of guys still skilled in the Victorian methods of cowl lifting and removal! Excellent new animal motifs as well.
Anna Carmichael
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This is gold standard craftsmanship
Many thanks to Darren, Brandon and all the team for their most efficient and professional work in replacing our cowl . This is gold standard craftsmanship, using traditional methods and practices; their knowledge and expertise stands testimony to the exceptional and courteous approach displayed by each and every member of the team.
Maria Murphy
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Just a pleasure to deal with a company and people like this and would recommend them to anyone
We had a cowl on our house which had been largely untouched for over 20 years and the vane just sheared off with the wind and rain we had. Darren came up to have a look and sent Brandon and his colleagues up to take it down Repair process took about a month and it just got refitted today. The whole approach was excellent and it looks amazing - in fact it is so white and clean it almost looks out of place!
Nick Brand
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As a family business, we place great stock in values such as trust and integrity. Constructing oast cowls takes great skill and precision, and our team are all highly trained craftsmen. We’re proud that we don’t use subcontractors – we would never risk compromising the quality of our work or our reputation.





