Extension costs/ time frame

[Smallbus1]

Just received a letter to say our neigbours (semi-detached) have submitted plans for a 2 storey side extension and loft conversion. Plans look lovely and no doubt will be approved.

We bumped into them outside on Monday and they didn’t mention it which is a bit strange but will have a proper chat after xmas.

In the meantime, does anyone know a v rough ballpark on how long these things take? I know a loft conv is 10-12 weeks but a double storey side and rear extension? Obviously we can’t and won’t oppose plans on noise grounds, but I want to prepare myself. Currently on mat leave and DH works from home (and in Tier 4 so not leaving the house much).

When our other neighbours (not attached to us) had a single storey ext, it took over a year and was noise hell with 2 newborns through the first lockdown.

It really depends on the builders and what time of year. We did a double storey side extension. It took from September to December to be watertight, windows etc. It then took until April for the interior to be done.
Our neighbours renovated their house in the summer and that was hard to live with on sunny days as we couldn't enjoy our garden.

Thanks, will have a chat with them and see when they are planning to start and roughly how long the builders are estimating.

our neighbour took about a year to get thier done, mainly due to covid delays. You may need to prep for a bit of noise during the day - builders "banter" which each other and crap music from radios.

That's very true about the music. Ours had the same radio station on the whole build 😂
We're planning work at our new house. We don't know when we'll start yet but it's likely to be summertime, which isn't ideal!

With covid I would plan for a year and be delighted if it’s over sooner.

A year....I can’t say I’m pleased. Other side neighbours are just about finished. We were thinking of moving but I guess this will put all prospective buyers off.

We were the extenders (only single storey though) this year and I truly felt for our poor neighbours. We dug foundations in March but then stopped for lockdown 1. We got out when the guys started knocking walls down in June and moved back in mid-October. We wanted to be as reasonable as possible in terms of disruption so they only worked 9-5 and 4-5 days per week - no weekends, often took Fridays off too. I gather even in the later stages that dust and noise from e.g. cutting bathroom wall tiles in the garden was hugely disruptive - and that was months after they stopped actually demolishing bits of the building. So it was 5 full months of dust and noise for our single-storey job - and with supply chains looking even more troublesome for the forseeable I think a year is probably about right. Sorry OP - best of luck to you.

@WoolyMammoth55 gosh I forgot about some of that. You can't hang washing outside when they're sawing/cutting etc (why don't builders do that out the front?!).

Honestly just pray your neighbours do it during the winter!

Eurg this is make me more and more concerned! Given they have just submitted for pp (mid Nov) I assume they will start late Spring, just in time to cause lots of dust and noise in the summer. Bugger!! The thought of a second summer like this makes me seriously consider moving in with my parents (I must be desperate to suggest that!)

I agree with the other posts. We started our 2 storey extension in February and are just doing the final decorating now. We also have the landscapers starting to sort out the garden as the builders created a lot of mess. I really feel for our neighbours. Over the year the noise has been on and off but there has also be at lot of disruption from deliveries of materials, lots of van's on site (up to 5 a day), skips and grab lorries etc. Sorry OP it does tend to drag on but in our case it wasn't constant and there were periods of relative peace.

Our neighbour’s 7x4.2m rear extension and a 4.1x8m two storey side extension was built in just under 6 months. I know they had issues with some engineer plans which caused delays but I’m not sure how long. There seemed to be a lot of guys working on it though- or certainly a lot of vans in the street.

We just finished our 2 storey extension, we stated in mid July and finished 2 weeks ago. In fact it took exactly 150 days from start to finish. We still have some minor brickwork to do in the spring but it won’t take more than a week or so.
We applied for our planning permission in May 2019, it took a while to sort building control, structural engineers and builders after that hence why it took so long to start.
Our extension is 90m2 so fairly substantial.

We engaged an architect in June. Plans drawn up but I returned them as wasn't what I wanted (architect knew better apparently and said I'd love the changes...I didn't). Approved January after 3 months going through planning which is the norm. Tender exercise February (took a few weeks to draw up the tender and make sure EVERY detail was in it and sent out end of the month. One month for builders to submit. Took a month for comparison of quotes (see note below) and appointed builder in March. Started digging out foundations August and finished for Xmas. So basically took 18 months start to finish.

This was for a ground floor extension but a large one with internal remodelling. Large structural work.

For those reading that are thinking of doing an extension.....Re the quotes. What we found when we went through all of them, is that most failed to quote to the tender document. For example one quoted for effectively the shell but no doors or windows 🤔🤔.

You also need to compare what materials they are using if you don't specify exactly what you want. Ie for sliding doors, if you don't specify some will either not state what they are using or specify utter shite which will be a disaster. Ie we specified Velux windows and the exact model. My neighbour didn't and got the cheapest, leakiest crap you could imagine.