Anyone starting an extension imminently?

[Karcheer]

Ours has been a long time coming, planning permission was granted 18months ago, but our builders finally start on Tuesday.
Would be great to have some build buddies

Eight weeks to the day on full planning permission, 5 weeks on expedited planning and 2 days on expedited lawful development cert (which was great as it should have been two weeks).

We will be here for a while been waiting for scaffolders to take it down since two weeks before Xmas and we can't start digging foundations under it!!

We didnt have planning but 'larger extension consultation scheme' which takes six weeks.

Phase 2 needs planning as we've used all our permitted development up

Ah well, there's plenty to get on with ourselves and other bits to do (but all so much more intrusive to our lives such as smashing out fireplaces)

Unfortunately the spirit was willing but the rain wouldnt let up this morning. The builders arrived but the rain just kept coming. Eventually they gave up for the day.

The builder thinks he should be finished at the end of net week. For contingency I am thinking the week after. Fortunately the builder is only responsible for the shell. We will do the finishing off so hopefully there wont be too much to-ing and fro-ing.

Pictures show where we are now. It suddenly seems so much more solid since the ceiling joists went in.

Looking good gnome. The rain hammered down here so I'm not surprised your builders struggled

The builders came yesterday and finished the roof structure.
It's going to be a quiet week this week as he has to attend a funeral in Ireland, doubt I'll see him till Thursday.

I thought I would quite enjoy a quiet builder free time but I'm really not.

Has anyone agreed a time scale with their builders to continue giving snagging lists? As in at what point is it fair for us to be responsible for any potential issues as opposed to it being their job to resolve it?

Wish me luck .... builders coming tomorrow to start on our kitchen extension!

It's rained here for the last three weeks (with a brief respite where everything froze solid!) so our garden is sodden where the digging is going to start. I am imagining a bit of a quagmire out there to begin with.

Luckily everything is happening at the back of the house so hopefully it won't have too much of an impact on us till they need to slap through the wall taking out the wall that has the sink and washing machine on it

Good luck, can't wait for our kitchen extension to be under way.

Have you got an expected completion date?

Not yet! The builder said "6 - 8 weeks" which I am assuming is when it will be ready to fit the new kitchen in (which I still have to order, but which is in a "basket" on DIY-Kitchens all ready to click "Buy Now" )

My range cooker also has a 6week lead time so I'll have to order that in the next couple of weeks too (I have to make sure there will be room for it to be delivered into as there's not really anywhere big enough to store it till the extension is up )

Looks good Gnome!!

Mad we've got a snagging list from July 2015 and he is coming back to fix it. Our relationship with our builder is long and complicated. We can't progress till the scaffs down now. He has no more labourers as they've all left him. He's yet to finish all jobs in a room. If a room is finished, it's because we've finished it.

DH says that the builder's subbie is back doing the tricky bit of brickwork. DH went out to look at what has been done and reports that it is looking good.

Oh and roof tiles have been delivered!

From reading posts on here I am glad that all the fiddly bits are being done by us. This means that hopefully our snagging will only be between ourselves .

Have been pricing up how much it will cost to hire a drier. I am hoping they wont have all disappeared off to the flooded areas.

Well, it's been an exciting first week. Lots of action. The scaffolding is nearly finished - it's huge. Conservatory is down. Skip, portaloo and first delivery of materials have arrived. We have given the back kitchen over to the builders to use as a command centre, get a brew, store the cement etc.

We've had to deal with our first unexpected cost: Fire Doors! I had no idea we would need these. Had no idea doors could be that expensive . Guess that'll be the first surprise of many. To balance the books, a few things have had to be sacrificed: The integrated blinds at the back of the house and the underfloor heating (though that was really only on the wishlist anyway).

Really useful and interesting reading back through this thread. Thanks for all your tips and insight people.

Did any of you keep a diary/spreadsheet etc of what did and didn't happen each day - conversations, timescales etc? Just wondering how useful that would be?

Sounds like everyone has been really busy lately! I am jealous, things are a snails pace here. I really want to get our lean to taken down as soon as possible as I'm worried it is going to come down of its own accord in the wind and the rain we're having!

Tiger I kept mental notes but nothing much in terms of what they say they will do when as I've realised so much is weather dependent. They may say we'll be there tomorrow to do X but then it rains so they can't do X so they will pop to another customers to do something inside. I don't mind, they've done everything on time and been lovely guys throughout. DP found it weird to begin with that some days they just wouldn't be here but we both soon learnt that for our guys at least they get the work done and there is always a reason for it (our window delivery was delayed for instance). They've still finished stage 1 on time so we're more than happy.

Gnome I wish we could do more of the fiddly bits. I want to go on a DIY course so that I can save us money, not sure they exist though. YouTube is
all well and good but I want to practise and not on my house

wombat you seem to have had nothing but trouble with your guys, hows it all going now?

NoMore 6-8 weeks will fly by. How have you found getting your order sorted from DIY kitchens, I want to use them but am so nervous of cocking it up

Tigerfeat we are having a nightmare with fire doors but they haven't been that expensive, it's taken a lot of the builders time but the builder allowed for ours in the original quote.

We are having major issues with the scaffolding the builders finished with it mid Dec and despite numerous calls to the scaffolders they have failed to come and take it down and it is now holding up digging the foundations for the side extension.

madblonde ... I have drawn, drawn and drawn a bit more the plan for the kitchen many times and then just ordered each unit and crossed it off, worked out how much worktop and upstand I needed, plus plinth, pelmet (I have just thought - I must check if i have enough for top AND bottom of the wall cupboards!!), worktop tape and a sink ... it's all sitting in my basket waiting for the walls to go up so I can make sure it will definitely fit before I actually order it.

The only thing I need to check with DIY-Kitchens is if I need end panels (but I don't think so cos the carcasses are the same colour as the doors)

Nothing much happened yesterday but today the labourers arrived and lifted the existing paving slabs/piece of back garden and dug the basic outline of the foundations. I have a massive skip in my driveway

Evening all

Wow, what a homecoming I got yesterday.

The house is completely covered in thick dust due to the Kitchen being knocked through to the new external walls and the Dining Room knocked through to the Kitchen, the boiler has been moved upstairs and the old chimney breast in kitchen has been removed.

They are going a great speed and I am typing this in bedroom as it is the only dust free space at the moment. Builder tells me that this week is the dirtiest/most disruptive and next week it will all be put back together. Time to batten down the hatches! Electrician and plumber starting end of week and roof lantern being fitted on Thursday.

Madblondedog if I remember rightly were you considering doing some of the kitchen installation yourself?

I have just had a couple of sample doors from www.kitchenandbedroomdoors.co.uk/. The quality looks pretty good. As do the prices.

Eurgh, just considering all this and dreading it. Can you please tell me how long it took from deciding to extend to actually going ahead? If it takes too long DH will be at university and we won't need the extra space!

Yes we are thinking of doing some bits ourselves, thanks for the link gnome

Scaffolding is due to come down from.phase 1 this week (yipeeeee).

Downstairs plans are starting to come together now. Just trying ti work out what we can do ourselves. I love DIY but dp although enthusiastic initially quickly gets fed up

Hello! Wow what a long thread full of interesting info! We are planning to start a kitchen extension in about a month. We're looking at slim profile sliding doors to go across the back, and I wondered if anyone has any experience, positive or negative, of any of the following:
Maxlight/Culmax
Slimline Aluminium
ID Systems
Fineline
Or any recommendations for any others? Culmax and Slimline both offer 20mm sightlines (the vertical bars between each glass panel) which I like the look of but it would be great to have some info on the customer service experience!
Thank you...

After waiting nearly a month the scaffolding is nearly down :) the bathroom floor is being laid and the electrician is finishing today so I'm a week or so the loft will be finished and they can start on the foundations for the side extension.

Having major dilemmas about removing chimmney breasts in the two back rooms. It would increase the size of the rooms but is it worth the additional mess, expense and hassle. Bearing in mind the ceilings may need to come down along with them and they look dubious in places and the corniceing would need redoing. But better to do it now then when we have finished the hall etc!

What will be our bedroom 3 is really taking shape now, it's so cool :)
All of our bedrooms will have eaves, are any of you having storage built into the eaves?

We have eaves storage, I love it it's so much more handy than just a loft as you can walk straight in

Horrible and messy time here at the moment. Thick dust EVERYWHERE. I have permanently rough hands and dull hair. Nothing stops it and it is hideous to remove. This evening I wiped my feet before getting into bed.

Roof lantern fitted this week. Temporary kitchen set up in Dining Room and electrician and plumber started 1st fix. Thankfully boiler has been moved to upstairs so our bedroom and front living room are always warm. Oh and the new kitchen/family room? It is huge! After chimney breast removal and knocking down old external walls we now have a full sized new space and we love it

Had a chap round today to discuss AV system for family room i.e. telly on wall with surround sound fitted speakers to ceiling and woofer?. DH's project not mine. I am awaiting the quote which will be the best time to talk him out of it

piglett for us it was approx 18 months from architect drawings to builder starting. That was due to hideous party wall survey delays and then builder not being available when we were for another 3 months.

Fantasy Only advice I can give for bi-fold doors is go see them all. Play with them for opening/closing ease and understand the differences between them all. For us the German systems were so much lighter and slicker to open/close and it came down to Schuco/Sunflex. We opted for Sunflex purely for the slightly thinner sightline.

Karcheer great news on Bed 3 for you, previous house had eaves storage and it is still mourned to this day (10 years later) Highly recommend.