moving out during building works - where to live?

[Enchancia]

Hi, we are having some building work done to our house, including knocking through kitchen and dining room, and putting in a new staircase, so it will be quite disruptive and builders have strongly recommended we move out (particularly as we have young kids). The work should take 3-4 months apparently. The problem is, any standard rental properties seem to be for a 12 month lease (some with a break clause after 6 months, others without). Anything less than that seems to be a 'short term' or 'corporate' let and talks about 'check-in' and 'check-out' days, so seems to be geared for much shorter periods of time and is extortionate! What do others do? Any tips of where best to look for a 'short-ish' let?! thanks

Out builder wanted us to move out too for our single story kitchen extrnsion/knock through. We looked into it as you have and couldn't find anything suitable/affordable either. In the end we decided to stay and I'm very glad we did. We are 13 weeks in now (still without a kitchen) and it has been a bit trying at times, but we've always been on hand if a quick decision needed to be made (my husband world from home and I'm part-time). Also there was a long period of time when our house was not very secure - gaping holes sort of boarded over etc etc and our insurance company specifically asked if we would be there. On the other hand out children arf older - 12 and 10. We have been lucky that we have had out washing machine plumbed in most if the time, if all over the place and when our cooker was taken out the builders kindly pug s plug on ig, do that wed could still use it (think the bacon sandwiches might have helped with that...). Washing up in bath nogt great but doable with 3 builders buckets. The end is in sight thankfully...!

Oops sorry about typos...

Have you a local Uni that might rent a large apartment?

Another stayer here. We're about to embark on a kitchen demolish(old extension) and then rebuild knocking through to the dining room and also building another storey above. We have 4 dc and are staying out. It will be absolute chaos, but it's temporary!! We did vaguely consider moving out, but had the same problem - how do you rent a house for 3 months? Plus the fact we have dog, chickens, guinea pigs and hamsters!

We stayed too, for the reasons you say - also money we had spent on renting somewhere else would have been money we couldn't spend on the extension. It was very dusty and very noisy sometimes and at one point we were all sleeping in one bedroom, but we survived. Moving out is easier for the builders but it's a lot of hassle for you!

We had 9 months of work done.
Took 2 walls off the house and only one room did not have a knock through.
No hot water for 6 weeks, no bathrooms for 5 weeks, no kitchen for a month (all at once)
Lived there the whole time - both self employed and 2 small kids and a cat.
It was hell but we lived through it : and it meant I could check up on the builders every single day they still cocked stuff up though

We stayed for the whole of our build apart from two weeks - we had a loft conversion, a two storey extension and a new staircase as well. I absolutely would not in a million years have trusted our builders to work unsupervised. The mess I came home to after they had had two weeks on their own was horrific, and I was routinely having to point out things that were wrong (water supplies in wrong place, sockets in wrong place etc). When I wasn't there, they were merrily smoking in the house and the unfinished loft conversion, tromping oil in through the non-building parts of the house and blocking up the loo, not to mention using an unused hole in the garden (was supposed to be a soakaway but wasn't used and was filled in eventually) as a rubbish tip rather than the skip.

We found that actually it was quite liveable in for the rest of the time, we had a make shift kitchen in the living room for three months, one bathroom between all of us and we were down to two bedrooms at one point, but it was fine. Builders will always try to move you out. I really wouldn't. We went to Centre parcs for one week, and stayed with family/friends the rest of the time.

Building went on for nine months btw, but we managed to keep the kitchen (and the washing machine) for most of that. Get used to your local launderette though. Least favourite bit was the weekly trip with two giant suitcases. We certainly learned to rewear clothes a lot more...

We had a caravan/campsite not too far away and stayed there for the 2 very worst weeks in the middle of winter and housesat while an elderly aunt went on holiday.

Caravan in the garden?

minimum assured shorthold tenancy in England is 6 months; that's the shortest with full legal protection for both you and the landlord.

so either get one of those and just live with the extra cost, or look at house sit/holiday lets; the former is very difficult and the latter very expensive in summer!

wow, thanks everyone - I just assumed that most people moved out for this type of work (our builders made it sound that way), but can quite see that they may just be trying to get us to do what's easiest for them... will quizz them a bit more about exactly what will be out of bounds and when, since we could probably stay with friends/family for the very worst bits, but couldn't really inflict a family of 4 on anyone for months on end.. thanks again!