Home Extension thread 2018

[Baxdream]

Thought we should get the new thread ready!
Our front door is in. Long story but it arrived damaged 😫 it's in and lovely but it's going to be replaced!
Our fencing has started today, the short ones are new, the others are getting ripped out

Oh blimey Bax, how are you feeling? I’m glad the plumber sorted your shower at least.

I am delighted to see sun all this week. Please let this mean that by the end of the week I have an extension shell!

Oh Bax,
Good luck and hope you get the certificate soon. Is it due from builder or council?

I guess they just couldn't be bothered to finish the job.. It's so unprofessional. Do you mean you still owe them? Are you going to pay?

It's due from a private company so we can contact them.

Yes we still owe them but to be fair I think we break even with what we need to pay out for. I don't think it'll end badly as such. I think we're both ready for them to go!

Oh goodness - glad you are happy with the outcome. Fingers crossed you can get all the loose ends sorted soon.

We are due to start in a month, asbestos survey done today and looks like it will be ok.

Currently trying to sort out home insurance as our existing insurers will not cover us during the building work. Anyone got any recommendations?

Oh, Bax, that's a shocker, you were the only one who seemed to be on schedule with everything. :-)

My dining area lights are finally in and I love them. They look fantastic. And I have under cabinet lighting on the wall hung cabinets and soon I will have it on the floor level too. Yay!

Quickly popping in to say we’ve FINALLY SIGNED OFF THE BLOODY ELECTRICITY!! 🎉 It’s been 3 months coming. 🙄

This means it’s all in motion now and will hopefully move forward quite quickly now. Electricity in next week, plaster the week after, and two weeks after that hopefully they can pour the floors. 6 weeks after that the second fix can start. Completion date set for August 1st. It’s gonna be tight but hopefully will all squeak in by the time the building company closes its doors for the local holidays in August!!

Great news Lingua, I hope it all goes to time for you.

My lovely dining area lights. I am so pleased with them I have to share. The under cabinet lighting makes such a difference in the kitchen too.

@Linguaphile Yay for the electric sign off - fingers crossed for August

@DustandRubble Your lights are gorgeous - where are they from?

From here @Threesocks www.artifact-lighting.com/

Those lights are fab Dust
Not such great news this end...our original quote was without knocking a wall down between the kitchen and lounge, and was without any work done on the loft. Once we had the plans drawn up it snowballed as we realised the ground floor wouldn't work without that wall out. So heavy duty steels required ( these also take into account the extra loft weight ) as we realised it seems pointless to create a new roof without preparing the loft for a conversion. Just seems silly to put in a new roof when in 5 years time we would want to convert the loft.
Anyway - revised quote came in today and it's about £60000 more. Fuck a duck... We're now wondering if we'll have to just do the ground floor but with all the steels in place for when such a time comes that we can do the rest.
I love our builders...they are so throrough, easy to get on with, totally reliable, do everything, have worked on friend's houses so I know the finished project is perfect...their quote is for everything except kitchen units/appliances/fitting, flooring and sanitary ware. But they are expensive. Buggerations all round

@DustandRubble thanks for the link. I have added it to my list of lighting shopping sites. Really surprised how reasonably priced they are too!

@bobkate Sorry to hear of your budget woes. Our first quote was double out budget, but with some downscaling and finding a different Builder we have got to a place we can afford (with a decent contingency). Good luck!!

Bax weren't you the only one with a good builder

Our quotes varied wildly from £52k - £115k + VAT, so keep hunting! X

I know 🙈 overall they have been good but they've lost there way a bit. They are new to it and ours was a big job. They've started there next job so have been a bit complacent here. It's just felt like every timescale they've given has overrun. We have been ready for them to go for about 2 months.
The bathroom overrunning was the final straw as its madness that everyone is having to use our ensuite!
They've collected all there stuff and we had a chat. It's definitely ended on good terms which was important to us.
The bottom line is we have a beautiful house and if we'd have gone for an established building firm it'd have cost far more than we've spent!
All in we've spent about £130k for a top finish extension the size of a house with driveway and landscaping. That really isn't bad!

No idea why I got my there/theirs wrong! Sorry 🙈

Making good progress here although I suspect we are a week behind. Had some issues with asbestos removal which held up the build but now resolved and moving forward. Main structure of the new roof section if the first floor almost complete, membrane on abd batons down and came home last night to the roof tiles stripped from the main section if the roof so I presume the builder will be laying all the new roof tiles. Sun tunnel will be going in also going week to give some light to our otherwise dark stairwell. Some of the stud walls internally went in and have noticed a couple of walls in slightly the wrong place/door placements not quite right so those will be moved. Now the structure of the kitchen is there I noticed the internal measurements aren't quite what was in the architects plans so the kitchen we ordered from DIY Kitchens in the Jan sale will need to be tweaked to shave off some cm here and there, it's just a big jigsaw really isn't it and need to find that missing piece. Had a mammoth issue with a glass balcony we need for our master bedroom which has a 4m run if sliding doors which leads to a terrace (no planning for it so can't use it as such), you'd think the brains in the house engineering would be able to find an easy solution to this but no. Anyways luckily caught it at the right time before they had built up the block work too much and can now connect a glass channel to the steel which runs under the sliding doors. This has been the worst headache so far.

Closely followed by neighbour, they don't like change shall we say so the fact we have completely ripped our house to pieces, removed all the exterior tile cladding, stripped the roof etc they've beek having kittens, "why have you removed the tiles, etc etc"....in my mind, "because it looks shit".

Most of the new bathrooms have beek delivered/ordered. Trying to stay one step ahead of the builder and so far so good.

Hope you are all progressing.

Thanks - I'm wondering if we get this lot to do the main timber frame plus steels then look about for others to finish. It's so hard to know what to do. The kitchen has been mostly removed, the ceilings are down in what was the lounge and kitchen so we can't stop at this point. Oh gawd...your budget Bax sounds similar to what we thought ours would be...it's now that plus 60,000.

Well ours is def small fry compared to yours bax and kate but we are in London and prices are crazy. I do love our builders but had first properly peed off moment with electrician yesterday as he wasn't working to the plan and had got the position of appliances wrong. So he now has to redo wiring and plugs before kitchen arrives on Thursday. I think someone else said that the last bit is the most stressful when it is actually coming together and you can see more than just the skeleton of the build. I hope it looks alright when it's in I can't remember what the kitchen looks like!!!!

Oh gosh bob £60k is huge! We couldn't have spent anymore. We're SE too so prices are crazy (hence we used the new company!)

Plumber was supposed to be here at 830, still waiting! Be glad when I no longer have to wait for tradesmen!

Bob,
What has caused the budget to go over by 60k? We really wouldnt have anything more than planned budget + 10%. So many people say the build went overbudget but dont tell why. Is it the builder who quoted wrong, is it that when selecting things you preferred higher spec?

Classic overspend is on electrics, happens so frequently when you request more sockets/downlights etc.

Some overspends can just be unforeseen stuff. My builders have worked on a house where they discovered when the floors came up that there had been a very slow leak and the foundations were waterlogged. We weren’t sure when stripping walls back whether all the plaster would fall off or if we could just skim them.

Pipes can be not where you expect, we lost time more than money because the sewage pipe was closer to the house than it was meant to be. Had we needed to move it that would have cost us a fortune, but thankfully the water company said it was ok.

Thanks humptynumpty and dustandrubble. I could plan a lot and may be able to control any overspend on things like extra sockets or expensive tiles etc but we dont know what unforseen stuff may come across. I just hope it wont go beyond contingency!

Bax it is great what you have achieved in budget. That bathroom will get sorted soon. Please share your tips which helped to keep it in budget.