If you’ve had your house extended did you find it really stressful ?

[LovelyYellowLabrador]

How was your experience ?

Yes it was incredibly stressful. The kitchen / side return was a lot worse than the loft. I needed a lot of time to recover from it tbh

Bloody, never-ending nightmare.

Yes. And be prepared for it to get more stressful as it goes on. Builders seem to like the early bits that are all knocking walls down. The further the project progresses, the harder it is to get them to turn up and do a full day’s work. I would strongly recommend two things to you:

1- get a project manager. Even if you ARE a project manager and could do the job easily, don’t underestimate how hard it is not to pass your stress as the client on to the contractors you are managing- but you have to, so that relationships stay positive. Having someone in the middle you can vent to, who then goes off and has the difficult conversations, is worth their weight in gold.

2- Don’t front load too much of the payment. You need to keep enough back to pay on completion to make it worth the main contractor’s while to finish the job. 10% isn’t enough. We withheld 10%, and were left with about a dozen silly little jobs that we spent weeks and weeks trying to pin them down to come and do. Builders just don’t understand (or care) that after all the mess and inconvenience, you want it DONE. You want to know that you can finally clean up properly and they won’t come back. (See previous point about a project manager)

Quite stressful but so worth it.

Moved out. Still stressful. Can’t imagine actually living through it.

Yes - and we only had a loft conversion but they were here FOREVER and never seemed to get it done. The final straw was getting home from a really stressful clinic appointment with DS and them having finished all the milk so I couldn’t have a cup of tea. I lost my sense of humour at that point.

We had ours done a few years ago, the back wall of the kitchen was taken out and it then snowed. It all got rather cold! We had a great builder though who was helpful all the way through and I just had to go with the flow! It was worth it in the end.

No, but I wasn't living there or paying for it. So, not a standard experience.

Yes and no.

It took forever as they started just before Covid..

Difficult stuff - back of the house was off and boarded up so had no access to back garden as it was a mud bath.
It was cold - see boarded up back of house.
the dust once they moved inside.
the endless decisions. DH mostly working from home so some bad mistakes nipped in bud.
snagging - not really done to a great standard.
Keeping neighbours on side re noise, dust etc.

Good stuff
They plumbed in the washing machine in the hall and we still had use of the kitchen.
They were polite and nice guys (apart from one who we eventually had a word with foreman about and we didn't see him again).
Our bedroom and the sitting room were pretty much untouched so we had retreat space. Front garden is also fairly private to sit out in so used that a lot.
The build wasn't over budget - but all the extras were!

It was worth it.

Actually, no, not stressful. There were tricky bits such as dealing with rainwater drainage. Other than that the builder was great and quiet. Arrived when he said he would etc.

This was a fairly straightforward rear extension. We were just within the larger extension permitted development rights. Roughly 5m wide, 4m deep single storey. This gave us a new sitting room. We then remodelled the kitchen.

DH is a very experienced DIYer and used to be a Part P electrician. He hadn't worked on building sites but he had worked on renovations.

DH did a lot of the labouring work eg he dug out the trenches for the footings. Tricky access meant it would have to be dug out by hand whoever did it.

Every day after the builder had finished DH would sweep up, re-stack the bricks ready for the next day.

We employed the builder to do brick, block and roof. DH did everything else: electrical work, dry walling, windows and doors, kitchen fitting etc.

My advice would be to really educate yourself about the basics and get to know terminology. If it is still there gov.uk website has a really good planning portal.

If possible isolate the building area. We have a nervous dog so DH built a partition where the knocking through was done so the dog couldn't see what was happening. Dog was happy, builders weren't barked at.

We planned everything in stages so that we always had space to sit and a functioning kitchen.

Yes!

Living with my in laws during covid lockdowns almost destroyed me.

It was expensive and stressful and soooo many decisions.

That said, I LOVE our house now. We'd never have been able to afford to buy this house as it is now. It is designed perfectly for us and our needs. It was worth the stress for sure.

Moderately stressful during the work, stress went the day the work was finished and it was well worth it - both times!