Living in house whilst extension takes place

[Ilovechocolatetoomuch]

We will still have two bedrooms, a utility, bathroom, lounge and a study which should be (apart from the dust) untouched.
We are having a double story extension built on the back of the house so access should be through the side gate and they will have their own loo .
So until knockthrough they shouldn’t need to be in the house at all.
Has anybody stayed in their house whilst this kind of work is going on? How bad is it when they knockthrough? And how long did you move out for if you did? I am thinking week away whilst they do the knocking through but it’s hard to book when you don’t know when they will start.

www.dustguard.co.uk/
Brilliant.

Great thanks MrsBlondie

We lived in our house through two extensions. The beginning was ok - it did get dusty when they broke through but generally they cleaned up after themselves and I did extra cleaning. I didn't find it that bad and I'm a clean freak! I suppose I knew it was going to get messy and tried my best to keep it liveable. My kids were 8 and 10 which helped as younger kids might have made things difficult (tools lying around etc).

We did ours with a 5 month old and 16 month old, but didn't lose the kitchen. The only day we went out was when they did the knock through in three rooms. It was dusty but the builders taped massive sheets of polythene across the rooms they were breaking into and that minimised the mess. Very doable

We thought about going away whilst the decorators were here but now they are I’m glad we didn’t, there are many questions that need an answer at any time.

The last kitchen we did was similar. So it can be good to be around.

We have just lived through this, it was doable if not always pleasant. We had temp kitchen with running water in study, they moved all old appliances in there inc dishwasher and tumble dryer so that was actually fine.

The hardest bit was having no/ltd heating a lot of the time. Even if it wasn't disconnected it wasn't necessarily heating all rooms properly and this was over winter. We used our wood burner a lot! If you are doing work over summer less likely to be an issue though.

We also had no bathroom for 3 weeks which was....unexpected. Had to take the kids to neighbours to bathe.

Overall it worked better for us to be on site to keep tabs on what was going on though.

Good luck!

I lived through a renovation.

Like a PP says, the lack of privacy and dust are HARD going and the entire process is stressful but it is good to be on site to make decisions instantly and also so you can spot issues (like things in the wrong place, not the spec materials etc) before they get too progressed.

Do not make tea or coffee! Give them a cheap kettle and their own cheap mugs.

Make sure all your tools, ladders and hoover is in storage. Builders will take and use your stuff and trash it.

Buy a wet and dry vac - they are not that expensive and worth their weight in gold.

I think it is easiest if you treat this like camping and have as little stuff as possible in the house, and eat our, go to friends, have take away, eat ready prepared stuff as much as possible. Don't make life any harder than you have to e.g. don't muck about trying to wash up in the bath when the kitchen is out of action - use paper plates.