Move out or stay during lockdown conversion?

[BillyAndTheSillies]

In a bit of a quandary. Loft conversion due to start on June 6th.

We have a four year old and a seven month old. We'd considered moving in with the IL's but the idea of being stuck there 24/7 during lockdown is exhausting.

Would we be mad to stay at home for the 8 weeks our builder has quoted it'll take? As a disclaimer, DH is a building contractor and these are his subcontractors - the length of time has been quoted because understandably they don't want to rush the work.

We are semi detached so the builders won't need to come inside the main house apart from breakthrough for the stairs.

Obviously under usual circumstances it wouldn't be an issue, DS1 would be at nursery and I'd be out with DS2 through the day but with nowhere to go I'm a bit nervous. Particularly as DH will be at work during the day.

We will definitely be moving out for a week while the bedrooms are moved around and redecorated but the idea of not being at home for 8 weeks is making me nervous.

Are we mad?! Will the dust be horrendous? And the noise?

I think about 3-4 weeks moving out would be the minimum - you can't be living in the house during lockdown conditions once they have broken through into the main house and are building the staircase. no need to move out for the full 8 weeks as it will be fine to live there during the preliminary work that can be accessed from the outside.

if you can't face that duration with the in laws then look for a local short term let.

We were at home during our loft conversion and I worked from home.
For most of ours you barely knew they were there

Even when they broke through and knocked the wall down we slept in the bedroom that night (disclaimer: my children had a stair-gate which I left on as our room had no wall and a sharp drop!

I was on mat leave with ours - they took the roof off the day we came home from hospital with DS2, DS1 was 4.

We moved out for one week, the week they broke through and put in the stairs. They sealed the rest of the house while they did it so the dust wasn’t too bad.

It was absolutely fine, and we had ours done over winter. Lockdown definitely a complication but hopefully some restrictions will ease soon as well.

Thanks all, we had a long chat about it and are going to try and stay as long as we can. Potentially moving to the in-laws for three weeks during the upstairs (not loft) renovation as the bedrooms all need replastering and redecorating. The house is bedlam at the best of times, let alone with builders in.

We had our downstairs completely done two years ago with a large kitchen extension but we had to move out because DS1 was literally coughing all night long because of the dust.

We will see how we go, but you have all given me peace of mind that it's doable and not too intrusive.