Home Extensions 2017 - come along on the journey

[RedRobin1]

Hi just wondered if anyone has recently started or about to start a home extension. Haven’t seen a 2017 thread so starting one here.

Our two-storey extension is due to start on 1st March and we have just started packing boxes. The planning and research has been ongoing for 2-3 years. Had planning permission approved a few years back and completed all the research around what we would like in our new extended and how we would like to design it all - extending the kitchen / dining area downstairs to create an open plan living, dining and kitchen space and an extra bedroom upstairs.

Have two DCs under 4 and need help / advice / tips and general hand holding.

Is anyone else starting theirs soon?

Still no floor finished....

We have no roof or ceilings. The downstairs structure is done. We thought we might be able to preserve about 30% of our roof but we can't so we have had the whole thing off. Just hoping we get a good run of good weather as we don't have a tin hat

Well a dramatic couple of days here!
Another Monday morning, another promise to come and make the site safe tidy up!
I came downstairs & there was a young lad outside sweeping up! Sweeping up!
I went ballistic rang the builder told him he was a fucking disgrace! The first contact I have actually had with him. I was so angry I was shaking!
When we got home he had been & tidied up, DH emailed him the letter & we got a response back about how shocked he was, couldn't understand our reaction and that my language was very offensive! which it obviously was!
But it seems to have got his attention, roof work started today, tilers booked for Monday, bifold going in w/c 17th!
I'll have to try and delay my kitchen delivery but at least something is happening at last!

Waves at pigley and your kitchen looks amazing! Drools...

Losing the will to live here. Our rubbish pile did go, and the floor was screeded on weds. I was told that the drainage and patio slabs would be put back this week, but we are still walking over a plank to get to our front door.

We've had issues with invoicing, suddenly received one a couple of weeks back citing X amount was left to finish the project plus the extras we had asked for. The X amount was a good few thousand off what we had need told 3 weeks prior. After chasing and begging for best part of a week we got him round to discuss and showed him the previous invoices and our spreadsheet (I love a spreadsheet!) And he can't account for the difference, so took it all away to look at. That was Monday and we are still waiting for an answer.... We got another invoice last night. Needless to say we are not paying a penny more until he confirms what is going on. We've also found out that the other project they are doing has a penalty clause if they run over, which they are about to. So that would explain why it's always seemed that this other project has been more of a priority for them, and now he's actually said that's the case as they are trying to finish it off.

Our kitchen comes this week.... builder told us what week to order it for. Monday they will build the stud walls and board it out, and plaster by the end of the week. We've been told they will just stack the new kitchen in the extension and work around it....

I am f*cking fuming tbh...

After his couple of weeks away our builder has been making good progress. The walls are virtually done, the roof is going on at the end of next week. Windows coming the week after and the bifolds are sitting in our garage waiting to be installed.
I must say they are keeping the site pretty tidy and no rubbish is being left around. One advantage of us having an awkward drive so they are making sure the access isn't blocked at all.
Dreading the knock through to join the extension to our lounge. I keep telling myself it will be worth it in the end

Oh Spie, it's horrible isn't it!
I feel like he's doing mine in his 'spare' time! My friend's neighbour is a builder & is doing his own extension at the weekends, it's gone up faster than mine! 😡
I've put my kitchen delivery back a month to prevent just the situation described!
I have never been so stressed in my whole life!

Couple of photos from my trip in to the back garden this morning!

2 days work on the trot here! A bloody miracle!
I have a felted roof!
We're now waiting for the velux windows which take 3-5 days from order!
DH sent him details of the sizes we wanted on 29 May!
But at least something is happening!

Hello! Looks like I'll be joining you all soon. Deposit just paid for our loft conversion which should start in 12 weeks :) We did a large kitchen and lounge extension 2 years ago which was very stressful but the builders gave us a shell and we did the rest. This time we have more money so we're paying someone to do the lot. We are having a hip to gable and dormer in the roof so will fit 2 bedrooms and a shower room for the kids plus a bit of eaves space and a hallway big enough to build some storage. We live in a bungalow so downstairs will be getting a reshuffle too. We are getting a new porch and our dds old room will become a nice big hallway (currently our hallway is a narrow corridor). Our bedroom will have its own mini hallway and new enquire and we'll be getting a utility room (hooray!). We are also retiling the roof. I'm hoping it will be less messy than the last extension (heavy clay soil is a joy when digging foundations!).

Enquire = ensuite

I'm not entirely sure what happened to the "we will give you a weekend to move out of the kitchen" but this has happened since Wednesday! They don't seam to be great planners and we often ask what's on the cards for the next day and it invariably changes! Apparently new boiler Monday (can't do final knock through until old one is out) and bi-folds in on Tuesday!
I'm so thankful that we have access to the new 4th bedroom as that is now our temporary kitchen!

Looking good Jojo!
I don't think any of them plan anything tbh!
Apparently our bricklayers came & went again on Thursday because they couldn't find the half a bag of sand that supposed to be there!
They've officially broken me! I was actually pleased that they managed 3 days out of 5 and I haven't even complained about the mess!

Can I join you - and ask whether you have managed to stay living in your homes whilst the work is going on.

Work will start on our loft conversion and kitchen extension in about three weeks time. We had always planned to stay in our house and to move out at key points in the project - eg when the ceiling is lowered. The idea was to do the loft extension first, so that we could live upstairs whilst the side return was being done.

I had a meeting with the builder last week, who said that if he could work on both projects at the same time, the length would be cut from 24 - 16 weeks. We are tempted but feel that the amount of work going on, would mean that we would have to move out. I've looked at short term lets and Air BnB - and it would add about 7-8k to our costs.

I am trying to see if there is a compromise between the two and wondered what everyone else had done?

Hi reason we've stayed but our builder is working on another project at the same time so it's slow moving and so far we've only had to move out of one room. It is a bit dusty but they haven't broken through yet so that will get worse. They're going to have the extension at the back finished before starting on our kitchen so we can set up a temp kitchen out there. I had 2 sets of friends who moved out last year as their builders promised a quicker building time but both ended up moving back in before it was finished as the projects overran. Both were due to be finished for Christmas, one finished about early March and the other has only just finished! You probably need to work out when the worst will be going on and move out then. It is possible to live through it, another friend did, it was hell but they made it. They didn't have flushing toilets or showers at one point. They were showering at work.

I think that was my worry - after reading this thread - that we would move into a short let or book a long term air BnB and then find that there were delays and we would find it too expensive to carry on living away from home.

I think that I will try and see whether we could move out at key points instead

We've stayed at home. Our kitchen had to be demolished, but we've had the bathroom and luckily an immersion heatat. It's been hell though! Started off ok but becomes less and less tolerable the more delays there are!

Our new roof leaked last night in the storm... Our freshly plastered kitchen now has massive wet patches!

Grr that should say heater!

We've moved out and taken a rental for a year with a six month break clause with the plan to move home after 6 months. We really wanted to stay in our house but with hindsight we've made absolutely the right decision to move, the house is currently a shell and it would have been impossible to live in. I'm down there at least twice a week, usually more and they are making good progress. I know the builders well, friends have used them and I know the people they are moving on to next so it's in their interests to get in and out of our house as quickly as possible

Thanks for your applies. Another question - the Party Wall Agreement with our neighbours hasn't been signed of yet. I have been told that they may want a payment for the use of their wall (our side return extension will join on to their wall). Has anyone else had to make this type of payment - and was it a lot of money?

My designers have told me that this might requested and are waiting to confirm the amount.

I have a 3/4 finished roof & 3 of 4 velux fitted hooray! They have done 1 day this week! God it is frustrating!
Sorry to hear about the leak Spy, are you sorted now?

I'm. Fucking. Dying.

I was on the thread riiiiight at the beginning.

Builders started 6th March. Simple, first floor extension over existing garage. 8-10 weeks work, max.

We still haven't got a mother fucking sealed roof. In fact, they've shown their faces ONCE in the last 3 weeks. And now I'm sat here, in the hammering rain, watching water piss through my ceiling light in my bedroom where they have put a hole in the roof to cut in. I've had to turn off electrics. Duvet is sodden, carpet is sodden. Plasterboard had crumbled and there's a hole about 15cm wide I've had to make to allow the water through. My bedroom which isn't even part of the build is now going to need a new ceiling.

Dh tried to call the builder and we got a text saying he wasn't local so couldn't help.

I want to fuck him off but he has the steel drawings from the structural engineer and we need them to get past building regs so I'm over a barrel.

Builders are utter, utter cunts.

Fucking hell monkeyfacegrace I've been in a similar situation and it's fucking horrible. I'm sorry you're there.

Keep a record of all of this, take pictures, they need to replace that ceiling. Their work shouldn't be impacting like that, they should have made provisions for keeping you sealed! We were roofless for six months with new lime plaster in a renovation. It was one in a very long line of things that went wrong. Eventually my parents got so pissed off with the whole thing (we'd run out of money, were on our arses and ready to bury each other in the garden) they got in some builders they knew to finish it and we won a court case against the roofers.

Now a year on (we renovated for a long time), we are gingerly dipping our toes back in and doing the final piece of the renovation puzzle, an extension to the back room... God knows why.

Also who did you use for regs? An independent approved firm or the council? They might be able to have a word with the engineer for the drawings, etc, if you need to sack it all off and get new people in (if that's an option).

We used the council for building regs. They've only been out once, right at the beginning. I've never seen them. Builder dealt with it all.

I have been SO naive. There's no terms of business or anything. I got the quote, accepted, and booked him to start. I have a feeling he is doing it cash, as that's how I've paid him.

Never done anything like this before and have learnt a HUGE amount as I've gone. Too little too late though.

Basically I'm thick as two short planks, too trusting, and I've been taken for a mug.

It'll all sort itself out. It has to.