re-do loft to have an en-suite

[minicar]

Hi,

Planning to buy a house with loft extension. It doesn't have an en-suite. EA said extension was done in 2005 when they had to keep eaves and not extend in a box like to get space. Can we do it now or its not worth it.

Thank you.

[PigletJohn]

does this conversion have Planning Permission and Building Control approval? You can probably look on the local council's website.

[minicar]

Thanks, I will check on the council website but assuming that it has been approved for how its currently designed. How much extra work is it to get rid of eaves and widen the room (stpp).

[Walkacrossthesand]

What you're thinking about is a dormer window. Is the house in a street of similar houses, and can you see if have any of them have had a dormer installed? There's also the issue of where the plumbing/drainage runs - there are ways of installing a loo some distance from a soil pipe but they involve macerators & pumps & I've never been keen!
Do you have a builder that you've used before/a friend can recommend, who can come and view the house with you and advise re feasibility and ballpark cost? You can do that before making an offer, it's quite acceptable.

[PigletJohn]

Or do you mean put a flat roof on, and a vertical wall (probably on the side away from the road)? That would be quite unsightly, so might not get PP (unless you can see lots of similar alterations in the area).

It would cost quite a lot. It would be better value to buy a cheaper house that did not already have a loft extension (as you will be ripping it out)

[SolomanDaisy]

Is that photo of the actual house? It already has two small dormer windows, so are you talking about a full flat roof extension? I think the main issue with that is that you would be very unlikely to get planning permission in many areas. They are quite ugly. You can still put a small ensuite in with those small dormers though, have a look on Pinterest for ideas.

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

Noise rises. Put the kids up there.

The problem (as I see it) is if you go to the trouble and expense of redoing your loft, you may have to install a bathroom at the highest (new) section. Therefore, the remainder of the room has reduced head height and that's where you will have a bed or wardrobes. It ends up looking a bit dark and pokey for a master bedroom which is not ideal given the cost and hassle of doing it.

If installing a dormer (assuming PP is not an issue) you should establish if you can put an ensuite at the front of the property (so loo under the window for example) taking a corner out of the room at the low side, with the shower at the highest point in the middle of the room.
There needs to be the space under the floor to allow a waste pipe from the toilet to be angled downwards until it exists at the rear of the house and joins the rest of the sewage pipes. Otherwise it will block.
The alternative is a macerating toilet which is v noisy for a bedroom en suite.

I hope that makes sense. There is a funny L shape behind the stairs on the drawing. Could a shower cubicle fit in there at the highest point?

[minicar]

I don't know the term properly but have seen houses where there is a slope only on front of the house but back and sides don't have the reduced height.

There is space on both sides of the stairs but its a massive waste of floor space. I was wondering how big a job it is to get the normal height/box type shape in the loft (stpp), probably got an en-suite on left/right of stairs.

There have been extensions in the area but not in the same street where its more square shaped.

[minipie]

What I think you're talking about is a mansard loft extension on one side, i.e. you will end up with a box/vertical wall on one side, instead of the existing sloping eaves, generally at the back of the house. Would you now get planning permission to do this? Have neighbours done it?

Converting the existing eaves style conversion to a mansard conversion, and putting plumbing up there, is a lot of work. Structural steels, new roof/external cladding and new plumbing if you want a bathroom.

As Piglet says you are effectively ripping out what's there and starting again, so you're losing most of the value from the existing conversion. Better value to buy a cheaper house without any existing conversion, and do the mansard from scratch.

[minicar]

Makes sense. Probably not worth to re-do as we would be paying for the loft extension in the purchase price already. Thanks, and mansard loft extension is the word

[GillSans]

Look at Converting the Hip line to a Gable roof. I think this is what you mean.

We're about to have this done under permitted development.

[Marmitelover55]

I have been wondering about this too. We had a basic loft conversion done 11 years ago but have always been disappointed with it. Out house is a semi and has a pitched roof on 3 sides and the pitch of the roof is very low. As a result we have lost a lot of floor space in the room to eaves storage, and the room is much smaller than I imagined.

At some point in the future I would like to put on a hip to gable roof extension and rear dormer, so that we can fit in an ensuite and have more floor space.

I would love to know how much this would cost as I'm hoping that some/most of the structural work has already been done e.g. Stairs, floor, but guess would need some more steels. Would the price to do this be roughly the same as starting from scratch or cheaper due to work already done?

We had an estate agent round recently to value house as we have recently had a kitchen extension. He basically said doing further work in the loft wouldn't add much to the value as we already have the loft conversion, so we would just be doing it for our benefit. Not planning on selling, as hopefully our forever house, but a second bathroom would be useful for us.

[minicar]

Thanks GillSans. Are you able to give cost estimates and your loft room size? Good to know its under PD.

[Pooka]

In order to do it as permitted development am pretty certain that there are total volume criteria - 50cubic metres for a semi detached or detached house.

We had a rear dormer and hip to gable roof extension that was just (cm) within the pd criteria and therefore didn't need to apply for pp. W wouldn't have got pp for what we've built because our LPA doesn't like full hip to gable extensions to semi detached houses - unbalances the pair of semis.

[GillSans]

I'll try minicar, not to good with all the measurement stuff.

It's a slightly larger than average 1930's Semi.

From the plans, the proposed loft size is going to be 4.5 by 5.7 m. The roof height will be 2.38m at the peak. Like Pooka, it's only just under PD, but that meant we avoided the planning department who had been refusing such applications recently.

We've accepted a builders quote of 30k, but obviously this might change if we alter the spec. This will include a new roof, proper staircase for access, ensuite (but without the fittings), and finished to a level where we can just move in. Their even going to paint it all white for us so we don't have to decorate immediately.

We had a few other quotes, and have gone with the lowest, but we've seen his work and had personal recommendations.

It's hard getting on the wheel, you can't get accurate quotes till you have plans, and you don't want to pay for plans till you know how much its going to be. I think you just have to take the plunge and get the plans done. We went down the architect route rather than a loft company as we decided to get a small downstairs extension at the same time and get both done at the same time.

Also, I'd say talk to your neighbours if you do go hip to gable. Ours have said they might get a new roof and do the same as they anticipate a loft extension in the future. If we have had to go through planning, this would have been in our favour.

[GillSans]

They're even...

[minicar]

Ouch! 30K and that was the lowest quote?

The house is already top of our budget, I think I'm going to pass on making an offer. Recently converted houses would have an ensuite too so will keep looking.

Thank you again.