Planning an extension this year - anyone else?

[pigsinmud]

Anyone fancy joining a support thread for extension planning & building! We have lived in our current house for nearly 15 years. It was built in the 1870s and had a kitchen extension at the back built in the 1950s. We are going to demolish that and build a 2 storey extension converting the current music/dining room in to a kitchen/diner and a new bedroom with en suite above. The kitchen has a terrace and steps/slide down to the garden.

A planning application has just been put in and I'm nervous! Plan is to start building when ds1 has finished his gcses this summer. Anyone else got plans?

I'm joining you all, started today with a survey by company we're getting to "design, manage, build" as they say. We're in a late Victorian terrace and the one-storey extension at the back with kitchen in is leaking and damp and we've decided to do something drastic.

So new 2 storey extension to be built, or maybe they can do something with the 2 existing walls of the ground floor and build up from there.

I am finding it hard to muster enthusiasm, a few years ago I'd have been all keen on having a new kitchen but I have so much else going on these days I do not care what my kitchen looks like.

Except I do like the look of recycled glass worktops, thanks to Noddy for introducing me to those. Maybe enthusiasm will grow...

I'm back, my single storey L-shaped extension has just gone in for Planning -gulp!

My first builder came back at 45580 which is 1193/m sq. We had another builder round tonight. I've been to see the Mortgage man, and that's started that ball rolling too.
My Structural Engineer came back with a quote for 300 plus Site Visits, so that's cheaper than I was expecting.

Mazzi, has there been any mention of VAT in your quotes? We have had 2 back so far, both of which didn't mention VAT. The first bloke was talking about weekly cash payments so I suspect there may be a bit of a VAT dodge going on. So many people have told me that that's how most builders work!

We're still waiting for a site visit to determine if the neighbours have an arguable case for their objection. I knew it would be stressful but not at this stage.

CurlyhairedAssassin no VAT mentioned although we are looking at very small builder companies. The 2nd builder will give his quote in a couple of weeks so we'll wait to hear what he's got to say. Meanwhile, I put in our drawings for Planning last night - [excited]

Well we had planning approval through and the builders provisionally booked but disappointingly the date was delayed by a couple of weeks. However this has allowed us to get contracts signed with the builder and party wall agreement from the owner of next door (slightly stressful and worried about disputes). So all is set for starting on monday, eek! Just got to finish clearing plants out of the way this weekend :-)
We are paying £1500 per square metre for a finished product inc decorating and bespoke cupboards.

Lots at the planning office stage then. Ours is finally at planning after going through pre-planning. Letters to neighbours sent out a couple of days ago.
ohnoyou how stressful. I'm hoping it works out for you. One neighbour will be fine for us as they had an extension a couple of years ago. We have spoken to other neighbours and they didn't seem fussed. We won't have any windows overlooking them. The neighbour at the bottom of our garden is the one I'm concerned about. Her land is about 8 feet lower than us though so I don't think it'll make much difference to her. Fingers crossed.

bigbadbarry Congratulations! Must be a wonderful feeling!

I'm sticking my head in the sand about it all really. The thought of a temp kitchen and one loo for 6 of us fills me with dread! Got ds1's GCSEs to get through first.

2plus1 Good Luck for Monday!

We've just managed to get planning on extending our house, but can we find a builder who is willing to tender...? We've approached 14 so far, and only 5 are still in the running - they've all got bigger jobs on!

It is hard trying to get a decent builder at the moment. The one we have decided to use is booked up for 10 weeks so we'll have to wait. Bit annoying but I would rather wait than go with someone we weren't so happy with.

Where are you, ishouldcoca? South east?

Our builder told us it's mad at the moment. Everyone is choosing to extend or have a loft conversion cos it's cheaper than the cost of moving, with stamp duty being prohibitive in itself in most cases, never mind increased mortgage payments.

We engaged our builder in back October at the planning stage so the quotes were realistic. They are only now able to commit to our job but that timing has worked well with the planning department. We had four quotes and we liked this one the best, not the cheapest but the one prepared to spend time with us discussing options and ideas. We will see how this works out between Monday and June! I like the fact that they have formalised contracts, timetable of events, detailed costings and a payment schedule based on work completed. Ooh getting a little excited (sounds a little sad eh).

Sorry Curly should have checked back sooner!

Yes, we're in the South East.

Our 3 weeks of waiting for the comments is up, and we've been sent the neighbours objections from planning

• Loss of natural daylight into our kitchen, hall and stairs and some impact in the bathroom
• The development will have an overbearing impact on our view from the kitchen and garden
• The development will also impact on the light into areas of the garden

Our architect has sent us data to show that the extension will only affect neighbours daylight for at the most 1 hour at sunset, so we're hoping planning will think this reasonable.
We're also hoping that as it will be 6 1/2 metres away from their closest viewing point, it won't be deemed overbearing, but again who knows?
Site visit is next Friday so hopefully we'll know more then. Oh yes and we're still to sort out the non existent bat problem, which we're pretty sure is the neighbours doing.
Anyway onwards and upwards(or side returns) people :)

Hello all. Early days for us, but looking to add on a single store extension approx. 4.5 m x 3.5 m. Anyone got any ideas how much an architect/architect technician would charge to draw up plans only?

Photo, we paid £1000 for ours, but that was a friend of a friend also our planned extension is quite a bit bigger than yours.
If you've a builder in mind, it might be worth asking them to recommend someone.

Thanks, ohno, will ask them when I speak to them.

A gentle warning. We're 3 months into our quite big extension. DH (in the business) is PMing it, as well as doing his regular job. We've got a great builder and everything seems to be running smoothly.
What we hadn't anticipated was the pressure and stress of managing the project ourselves. Keeping track of the finances and the endless decisions are taking their toll.
Apparently the mantra is "it'll be great when it's finished".

Joining you if I may? We are planning a relatively small extension , mainly to use up a dark corner behind the garage that gets zero sunlight so is mossy and horrible all the time, it's only 1.75 metres by 3.65. Also to put a doorway through to garage and create a shower room/downstairs loo and utility, depending on what will fit once the plans are drawn.
I've had an architect technician around and given him the green light, but we're still waiting for him to do any actual work.

Its a 1930s house with a separate kitchen and dining room, these were already extended by previous owners so are a fairly good size being 3.5 metres by 5.5 metres ish each.
I've been going back and forward over knocking through the 2 or keeping separate for months now, this week I'm in the knock through camp and steal some space from it to add to the new extension making a study/playroom/den. This would make a kitchen diner of 6.5m by 5.5m and a new room of 3m by 3.65m, sound big enough? I'm would only do the knock through if another room could also be created as I don't want less rooms because with teenagers and a toddler I need somewhere they can call their own.

As I said I've not had plans drawn up yet so don't know if it is all doable.
I've emailed the council to check it's within permitted development, I'm fairly sure it is, so also waiting for that.
I'm aiming to project manage it myself however the architects fees include dealing with building control for us.
So, that's me............. hello *waves!

Well we are first week into the build. We have a skip on site and a loo! First issue was finding an old concrete base the size of our planned extension under the decking. That has added extra breaking up and removing. Also a drain had to be checked as it looking like next doors extension rain water could drain into it, fortunately that is capped off. So next week the mini digger comes in to dig foundations. Just in time for half-term! So far a few stresses but not too bad.
Btw we didnt realise the notice period for party wall notices to the neighbour which needs to be done beforestarting. FFortunately our neighbour agreed within a week so we have started-slightly stressful!

Photo - 4.5 x 3.5 extension?

If it is a fairly straightforward flat roof cavity wall box then 800 - 1000 should be sufficient and to be fair you would be safe with a plan drawer, architectural technician (or architectural technologist as some call themselves), 'architectural designer', builders's draftsman or indeed anyone who has watched a few episodes of some tacky TV house renovations programme and can push buttons on a free CAD package (Google Sketchup anyone).

If, however you need flair, creativity, education, intelligence, experience, imagination and actual architecture then contact RIBA or let me know if I can recommend someone.

Final plans done so the architects are starting the planning application this week.

Scary/exciting!

We have been lucky with the weather so the foundations were dug, inspected and concreted last week. Scarily our current foundation of the house is only about 12inches! We also found the old remnants of the coal shed but no roman haul or old war bombs lol. This week is block work and oversite etc. Bricks are arriving too. At the mo the space looks very small although it is 3x4.8m. I am hoping the foundation footprint gives that illusion! Looking forward to the brick laying stage as it will start to take shape. In a months time we are scheduled to break through into the current house,; ; excited.

Can I join please?
We are planning to extend the kitchen slightly and reconfigure a shower room and utility room to add space to the kitchen.
Originally we thought about a huge kitchen extension but the two quotes were between £50 and £60k. Bit too pricey, so we've scaled things down and someone is coming next week to have a look and give a quote.
Very exciting!

We are just coming to the end of ours, which involved an l shapes extension to side and back, adding new kitchen diner, bedroom/ ensuite, bedroom extension and family bathroom. My advice is that it took much longer than we thought, contingency plan is never enough, account for outdoor work (our patio and grass was wrecked as well as driveway being damaged by skips etc), plan for time without utilities (we had three months with no kitchen and only running water in whole house was in upstairs bathroom), snagging may take ages as the builder will inevitably move on to another job and the decorating/sorting/ organising at the end takes ages!!!

Despite this it was worth it, even if we are still not quite finished. Our builder was fantastic- had we gone with a bigger company it would've been finished kore quickly but would have been unaffordable!