Hi all,
We're currently planning a knock through in a Victorian home to turn the current back hall way, understairs, kitchen and utility room into a larger kitchen(hall, kitchen and utility) and a downstairs bathroom (part of hall and understairs).
We've had a builder round a few times and are no closer to having an idea on price as he says that there's no way of knowing what they're dealing with until they get back to brick.
We will definitely need a steel between the kitchen and utility as it's structural. More than likely will need a second steel to support the upstairs chimney breast which has already been partly removed on the ground floor. The wall between kitchen and hallway probably isn't structural but may be and we'll no doubt need a lintel where we're taking out the door to under the stairs.
The house is a mystery, so I do get why he isn't keen to just throw a figure at us. The upstairs back wall appears to be double brick thickness, the same wall downstairs (which would be being removed) appears to only be single thickness. Bizarre.
He is saying that the best way would be to do day rate for a week to take out the walls and dig the pipework and then provide a more certain quote for the rest of the work that will need doing at that point when it's more certain. I'm not totally against the idea.....I'm just concerned that once we're at that point we can't exactly say "Sorry, but that's an incredible amount of money and I can't afford it!".
Our original budget for the whole thing, including bathroom and kitchen fixtures is about £6k, but I'm definitely getting worried that that isn't going to be possible. We can get a loan and get more, but we're at ceiling price for the street already so as we'd be doing any work just for us (we aren't planning on moving) anything more than 10k seems ridiculous, particularly given that I won't be getting exactly what I want due to structural issues.
Building regs is a minefield and our local Council's web page doesn't really make it easy to work out how to get them to come and look at it, calculate steels and sign off. The last time I emailed them was about 6 months ago and I never received a response.
Has anyone done similar? Did you have any issues? How much did the work (minus the kitchen and bathroom fixtures, which i'll be sourcing myself and will find a bargain) cost you and what did it include?
We're in the midlands and are looking at a day rate of about £160.
Thanks in advance! I'll add plans if I can work out how to post a photo.