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

Plumber didn't turn up 😡 so now on the hunt for another one...

Builder text hubby asking for £500, laughable! We 'owe' £2700 and we need to get a plumber to finish the bathroom, carpenter to fit a door, electrician to fit outside lights and finally get electric vehicle gates (supply and fit).
I have no doubt it'll cost us more than £2700!

Our overspend has mainly come from us changing our minds and getting a couple of load bearing walls removed, so big steels in place. Plus we're getting the loft converted now which wasn't included in the initial costings. Plus the plumbing system is being changed, and a rewire. So once it's all done it's all done. Hoping DIY kitchens is going to come up trumps so savings to be made there. Have allocated quite a lot for sanitary ware, flooring, etc so hoping that will come in less. The quote is completely detailed with everything covered. Our ground works have been done so there really shouldn't be any further surprises to come.
Stressful though. Can't wait to be nearer the end and we've only done 2/3 weeks!!!

Honestly, finding good tradesmen seems to be a dark art! Good luck Bax.

I'm still hunting for a plumber. The one the builder recommended never came back with a quote, a local guy quoted double what I was expecting based on earlier builder's quotes I'm hoping to find a better one otherwise we will not be getting a new boiler!

Thanks bob for giving all details. Good that you are getting it all done, true once it is all done, it is all done.

Bax,
Good luck and dont worry. It is almost over and you have already got a very nice big house now.

Oh Bax I'd be pulling my hair out if that was me!! Honestly it's all so stressful, it must be achingly frustrating to be so close to the finish line and having that happen.

We've overspent by about 40k. I still feel sick about it. :( We were quoted about 10 thousand less on the loft conversion than it actually turned out to be, and that wasn't counting bits like shower/vanity/tile for the bathroom. Electricity overspend was about 12.5k (recessed lighting on dimmers is a money pit), flooring/tile overspend was about 17k. We had no idea it was so expensive to tile the italian showers we'd already signed off and had installed by the plumbers, and the wood floors turned out to be far more expensive than anticipated.

I wish someone had told me to take out about double what I estimated it would cost. It would have been so easy to just take out a bigger home loan and just roll whatever we didn't use back into the mortgage at the end of the process, whereas now we're having to pull that 40k out of our savings in cash (the house wasn't cheap to begin with!), which leaves very little left for second fix contingency. Not ideal.

I guess that's why, although the quote has come in more than we initially planned, it really is ridiculously detailed and covers absolutely everything. So in theory we should have no nasty surprises....( hope these are not famous last words!!! )

We are currently planning a large double storey extension and I cannot get my head around how much it is going to cost. If it's not too nosey can I ask how much you are spending and how you are financing it.

Depending on spec I think we could get to £200k (how? You can buy a house for less than that) and the only way we can do it is by remortgaging.

Thanks so much in advance.

Bobkate I think that's probably the key, getting the quote really right the first time! With our place the original quote was bare minimum of the cheapest materials and then the labour (like, 1 overhead light per room, cheap shiny beige tile throughout, cheap showers in dinky shower cabins, etc), which obviously is functional but not realistic for what I wanted (wood floors, italian rainwater showers, recessed lights, lots of sockets, nice stone tile in bathrooms, internet points on each floor, etc). It all adds up sooooo fast. I was shocked by how quickly just the extra sockets added up... but it's something you want to get right the first time because it's so hard to change, so it's not like we were going to skimp on those! The more detailed you can be about exactly what you want, the more accurate your quote will come out!

Agree detail is key, listing out what you want to the minute detail. Before we started we had a 35 page quote drawn up by the builder and I had identified all the items I would need, literally links and real time prices. You need some vision to get it right walk through your to be built house and work out how you would use the space and what you need there. We're doing a 2 storey extension and internal remodelling and we are looking at 300k.

So far we are bang on budget as it currently stands halfway through.

Humptynumpty,
Detailed quote and list of everything we need to buy - i have been looking online but i should get it all written down now at one place.

All this talk of big over spends makes me nervous!! We spent loads of time writing the down the detail of everything for our quotes, so we have chosen the exact floor tiles, toilets and position of every socket already .. I am hoping this will be worth the effort and overspends will only be because we change something (which Dh and I have sworn not to do - famous last words!). Our first quotes were around £250k and we have ended up with a detailed quote for everything for £140k so it does pay to shop around!!

Bax - hope you can get the last bits sorted, tradesmen can be so frustrating sometimes.

Managed to sort out arrangements for the gas meter being moved yesterday so it's all staring to feel real!

Yes the big overspend is my biggest concern about extension. What we are doing isn't very common so hard to find any baselines for costs. Still awaiting new drawings at the moment.

The builder walked in yesterday, looked at our dining area lights and reckons they are going to have to move across as they won’t be centred on the dining table. How’s that for an eye for detail?

I am reserving judgement for now. I don’t want to have to ask the electrician to shift them!

Dust - now that's my kind of builder!! I was chatting to someone who used to live next door to our Builder and she said that his own house was immaculate and he had a real eye for detail so fingers crossed!!

Thanks everyone. The plumber came in the end but it's still not sorted as we need a part. We still haven't paid him so we have the upper hand!

I take my hat off to anyone that doesn't overspend. We just ended up with extras rather than coming across any issues as such!

Dust - our builders were like that too, our electricians didn't have eye for details and some of our spots/dining light had to be moved.

Our electrician is great but because we still have to get the bookshelves in he may have not taken enough space into account when fitting them. It would have been helpful if we had marked the floor for him so he could easily see where things needed to be.

I have temporarily put our small table in the space and I think actually it may be fine. But I can’t find a tape measure to check exact positioning.

We now have a roof, the first step to becoming watertight again after 7 weeks open to the elements.

We have one week until our landscaping starts but I have open bifolds 😱

Gah, we're hoping to use an electrician that we've used before, he's old, talks a lot but a great tradesmen. He's come back to me and he's struggling to price my very detailed & extensive electrics plan. Instead he's said he'll give us a good day rate if we pay cash. I've gone back to him and explained that I need an indication at least and told him what I had allowed in the budget. It makes me nervous though as he's old and slow, so a day rate isn't appealing

At the same time we trust him & his work and don't know any other good electricians

Lovely bifolds Bax! I can’t wait to be able to enjoy the nice weather in my garden. That day is getting closer as the steels for the extension are going in now.

Oh wow Dust that’s quite an eye! I must be a maaaaajor micro-manager because I mapped out our whole floor plan for the living/dining/kitchen area, put in all of our furniture with exact dimensions, and then gave the electrician exact measurements for light placement, down to the millimeter. 😂He probably thinks I’m a nutter, though to be fair he did ask me where I wanted them! We’ll see if they do it right! Proof will be in the pudding. 😬 I still feel irrationally very stressed still about it though because WHAT IF I WANT TO MOVE MY DINING TABLE? First world problems. 🙈

Today I’m freaking out because the kitchen company had pronounced that they will not install the over-island box for the hidden extractor fan and lights and also will not build out above the wall cabinets up to the ceiling in the kitchen. Building company says they will do it for the tidy sum of 2-3k, which has me balking... again...

Will it never end?? 😩

Baxdream,
Cool bifolds and perfect weather for those.

Steels are in! Builders are feeling more confident in an end of May completion date. And excitingly now the steels are in they can finish the shower off in the upstairs bathroom. It is on the corner where steels where being placed so they didn’t want to risk cracking tiles.

Yay dust, great news!