Side return and loft - efficiencies doing both?

[User1990232]

Hi all. We’ve been planning to convert our loft next year by remortgaging to add 2 extra bedrooms and a shower room (it’s a 3 bed + study atm). Longer term we’d also planned to extend the kitchen into the side return. House is a standard Victorian terrace with two receptions (which have been knocked through) plus utility and kitchen.

Would it be more efficient to do everything in one go (subject to affordability obviously) or would it not make much difference to overall cost? If we don’t do the side return with the loft we’d prob do it 3-5 years later.

You'll damage one doing the other. So doing both at the same time makes sense.

You probably can’t do both at exactly the same time, as you will need your side return space for scaffolding for your side return.

Whether you do one job followed by the other depends on the contractors you get.

I would be inclined to keep the jobs separate. Do the loft conversion first.

Thanks, yes I didn’t mean simultaneously, but consecutively without a 3-5 year gap in between.

Can I ask why the side return would damage the loft? And why do the loft first? (Though that would be the plan anyway).

Doing the loft first would mean working with gravity.

It requires scaffolding, which would not be possible with a side return.

But terrace house can build loft conversions without damaging houses next door. I don’t understand how of why a loft conversion would mean damaging structures on the sides of houses. The key is access to the back of the house.

We’re end of terrace on a corner so have side and back access luckily. We want to do the loft first to have the space anyway (both of us will be wfh a lot more, family lives abroad and stays often so need a guest room), so I guess it’s whether it might save us money long term to do the kitchen straight after, or better to wait until we’ve saved a bit more and probably remortgaged again!

You don't need a side return to do a loft conversion. They're possible even in terraced houses.

We are also thinking of doing this and have been told the same but also don't quite understand why!

Do simultaneously if you can. Everywhere gets trashed during building work so it saves having to get the hall, landing, decorated twice etc plus things like your lawn might get used for storage so again needs effort to recover . Plus it's one lot of upheaval not two.

I'd go ground floor extension first, then loft. The side return will cause damage to the floors above because of the movement the extension causes.

When the steels went in and the temporary supports were removed, we developed huge cracks in the first floor bedrooms and bathroom, which was freshly renovated, so meant retiling etc. It's inevitable, apparently.

In hindsight we should have waited and started from the bottom, but at the time it seemed unbearable, and architects, planning etc on the side return took a while.

And that was based on your comment re remortgaging - if doing both simultaneously is an option, then definitely do that!

Thanks for the replies. I’m tempted to try to get it all out of the way at once but at the same time we’ll still have nursery fees next year which will impact how much we can borrow. Very good point re the movement caused by extension...will definitely postpone doing the bathroom until after that then!

This will likely be our forever home so in some ways no rush, but at the same time I’d like to get the most out of the space while the kids are small.

To get steels in invisibly to the ground floor ceiling, they punch through the wall in the first floor to jack the back of the house up. So rooms above the extension get trashed. Plus settlement / cracks right up through the house.

To do the loft will need scaffolding, so the ground floor extension gets in the way.

Nightmare!

Eek. Ok so ideal would be to do them both at the same time, but if not then it’s best not to redecorate first floor/add a new first floor bathroom before side return goes in.