Is there a 2021 extension thread?

[Yellownotblue]

Just that really, I found it very informative (and exhilarating and at times heart breaking!) to read the 2020 extension threads. I couldn’t find a 2021 extension thread. Please can you direct me, or if there isn’t one, let’s start it! All welcome.

As for us - we’re awaiting PP for our extension and our architect said the work might start as early as March (ha! I’ll believe it when I see it). It’s a large extension and we will need to move out for about 9 months so I’m a bit flustered at the thought of moving out in 7 weeks’ time. We’re extending over the garage, in the garden and in the loft, and doing a shedload of other stuff from electrics to roofing and redecorating everything. We’re in SW London.

I've just read this thread with interest.
Sorry to say I'm a complete novice at all this.
I'm a single parent with two teenagers and thinking about the possibility of some building work and maybe an extension.
The problem is, I have absolutely no idea where to start! It's a bit embarrassing really but I'm a complete novice.
At the least I want a load bearing wall knocked down between the kitchen and dining room/lounge, all new flooring and walls in that room and a new kitchen. The next possibility is to add on an extension so my dining room meets where the end of the kitchen is already to make the room bigger and finally I would consider blocking the lounge end off to make a separate room.
I also need all new windows throughout.
Please can I ask advice? What do I do first? What does a complete beginner need to know? I have no idea yet if I can even get the funds but obviously kind of need to know approximate costs to enquire about this too!
It feels such a minefield.

@LittleOverwhelmed so much to juggle, isn’t it? And progress is always slower than you expected.

Our floor is LVT, very thin and relatively easy to cut.

I wish we were renting. We live on site with two little kids. I do dishes in the downstairs loo sink and cook on a hot plate in the hallway. I also hand washed two bath fulls of clothes on Easter Sunday. The list goes on... In hind sight, we really should have looked into renting as living on site definitely slowed things down, the boiler for instance had to be moved twice so we didnt freeze in winter.

I hope you will be able to move back into a functioning utility. We are both close to the end now!

@aleC4 we started by talking to some local builders to get a rough idea of the cost. I then did tons of research and numerous layout designs until I was happy with it. We also played with our banks online mortgage tools to get an idea how much more we can borrow. We then contacted an architect to do the drawings/buidling application and other pepper work. Then we got quotes from local builders from detailed drawings and specifications. Then we chose one and started the build! I would say I was where you are now in the summer of 2019. Best of luck.

@aleC4 we started with the money side and how much extra we could borrow at remortgage time. Then thought of some basic ideas and got rough quotes from builders. It's overwhelming though.

Update!!
Our house is timber framed but most importantly we can build onto the garage so we should save a huge amount!! Woohoo!

Hello! Can I join this thread please? We're having our Victorian terrace completely remodelled along with a side return and loft conversion, starting in June.
We've just appointed builders and finished party wall and are looking at suppliers now for windows, kitchens etc.
We're moving into a 1-bed flat with our 2 kids for the duration (likely 6 months 😱) ...

I’m still lurking and watching other poster projects coming together. Our plans are still with the planners. 23 weeks and counting. Google informs me if it takes more than 26 weeks we can apply to get our fee back.
We have applied for rear double height extension and (bungalow) loft conversion to create another bedroom, but since submitting, have decided to just do the rear extension. The upstairs bedroom is more than we need (we are already a 4bed) , it was originally to be an upstairs lounge with great views. However planners said they would refuse that so we changed it to a bedroom, but it will be an expensive additional bedroom that we won’t proceed with. A future buyer may wish to though?

Am sure the rear extension (5mx3m), UFH, knocking down internal walls, new insulation, landscaping and re-rendering will explode our budget anyway, so prob best we arent doing the loft.
CallmeJudith, 12years? I’m not surprised you are excited to get started. That’s a lot of anticipation.
Ale, our plans don’t sound dissimilar. I can keep you posted. We got an architects opinion first, they designed amazing plans (inc upstairs lounge) and we can’t get them passed 😬 so have moved on to plan B. Once we get the plans passed, we can get detailed drawings from architect and get quotes from builders. Hoping to get going this year but that may be unlikely given the busyness of local builders. Everyone seems to be renovating houses in lieu of holidays.

@emeraldcity2000 we're a victorian terrace too, would love to see your plans!

Builder confirmed he can start start of July so just booked an airbnb for 3 months. So expensive but just around the corner and DH and I are both WFH so no way can we stay in the house while the work happens

@Baxdream

Update!! Our house is timber framed but most importantly we can build onto the garage so we should save a huge amount!! Woohoo!

That is great news. What would the alternative have been? shallower foundations hence demolishing it and starting again?

@SheriffCallie

I’m still lurking and watching other poster projects coming together. Our plans are still with the planners. 23 weeks and counting. Google informs me if it takes more than 26 weeks we can apply to get our fee back. We have applied for rear double height extension and (bungalow) loft conversion to create another bedroom, but since submitting, have decided to just do the rear extension. The upstairs bedroom is more than we need (we are already a 4bed) , it was originally to be an upstairs lounge with great views. However planners said they would refuse that so we changed it to a bedroom, but it will be an expensive additional bedroom that we won’t proceed with. A future buyer may wish to though? Am sure the rear extension (5mx3m), UFH, knocking down internal walls, new insulation, landscaping and re-rendering will explode our budget anyway, so prob best we arent doing the loft. CallmeJudith, 12years? I’m not surprised you are excited to get started. That’s a lot of anticipation. Ale, our plans don’t sound dissimilar. I can keep you posted. We got an architects opinion first, they designed amazing plans (inc upstairs lounge) and we can’t get them passed 😬 so have moved on to plan B. Once we get the plans passed, we can get detailed drawings from architect and get quotes from builders. Hoping to get going this year but that may be unlikely given the busyness of local builders. Everyone seems to be renovating houses in lieu of holidays.

We too are still waiting for planning but only 6 weeks in so far. Ours tells us that determination deadline is 27th April. I hope they stick to that. Do you know why they are taking so long? Do they have a backlog? We are also a bungalow but with only 2 bedrooms at the moment. We plan to convert the loft to 2 extra bedrooms, a bathroom and another single room which will be our office. We already have a back extension which we also applied to extend to full the width of the house. However, we are doing the opposite to you by converting the loft first and doing the downstairs in 3-5 years time.

I have planning drawings in my inbox but I don't want our architect to submit them until I've worked up the courage to talk to our neighbours about them. We only moved in a couple of weeks ago so we're not on friendly terms yet, apart from initial hello & welcomes.

Does anyone have any tips on how to endear ourselves so they don't object to us building a huge extension next door??

Housey I’d go the bottle of wine route and just be honest. Nothing worse than them finding out another way.

@Notyetthere if our foundations weren't sufficient, we would have to pay to demolish the garage, dig out all the foundations to redo it.
Thankfully it looks like they've done the same foundations for the whole house including the attached double garage.
Such good news!

@Baxdream definitely good news. We actually have a base of what would have been a garage to this house but it seems to have been demolished in the past. I wonder whether the base has sufficient foundations as we considered a garage as we will be losing the loft storage. Hmmm.

@HouseyHouse21 We have just done this! I was dreading having this conversation with our attached neighbour. There has been heavy objections on our road of bungalows when people started converting the lofts and extending them downstairs. We actually bought ours due to the potential of extending it and turning into the family home we wanted. We knew from the council's planning website that what we wanted to do has already been approved on several of the bungalows despite the objections. The objections have been mostly about losing the last few bungalows left in our town and why people don't just buy family homes which really aren't valid for planning. Our neighbour is one of the chief objectors, however, we are a bit further along than you as we have been very friendly with her. We moved in October last year and we submitted our application beginning of March so we have had time to mellow her. We spoke to her the week before we knew she would receive notification from planning. We talked through the parts of the project that were on the party areas and assured her that we would insulate and soundproof the loft party wall. It went better than expected. She said she didn't agree with it but would not object either since everyone is doing it. It is ok for now but I think it is still precarious so we shall brief our builders about our delicate relationship and to be very considerate. Also a bottle of wine every so often especially during the noisiest of the work will be on regular order. I think you should just go and speak to them. Take a copy of the plans and just go through it. It is definitely better they find out from you.

Thanks, that's good advice, will take a bottle over today. We probably should have tried to make a good impression when we moved in so it doesn't seem like overt bribery, but we were getting on with unpacking etc. DH thinks we should also offer to fix the fence on their side, so I might rehearse how to casually drop that into conversation as well. I think the pandemic has made me even more anxious than normal about standard human interactions!

Can someone talk to me about structural engineer costs. We have a quote back for one to do the calculations for our extension. We are extending an existing single storey out by a metre, building on top of this and extending to the side by a couple of metres.

First quote back is £3600+Vat so £4320 all in. This is for one site visit and the calculations. I’ve queries with our architect but this seems so expensive to me, but haven’t got any experience to know if it is or not? Anyone have similar?

Ours was £3250 inc VAT, with one site visit and all the liaison with the architects. Lots of tricky steel work and a two story extension, SW London.

Glad to have found this thread! We've recently got planning permission for a full remodel of our Victorian terraced house - ground floor wrap around extension, loft conversion and changes to internal layout. We're speaking to a couple of potential builders next week and I'm really worried they're going to tell us we can't afford what we want within our budget.

We are planning to move out for at least the first part of the build but not really sure where we'll go. I've seen a few people mentioning AirB&Bs, don't you have to rent those by the night?

Gosh that sounds high, amazeballs. I've just looked back at my spreadsheet for our side return extension a couple of years ago and the structural engineer charged us less than £500 all in. I suppose it must have been a relatively simple job. I definitely haven't budgeted as much as the amount you mentioned - might have to 'find' a bit more from somewhere else.

Thanks both. I’m glad it’s not just me thinking it’s loads. Hopefully the next quotes are better. I budgeted around £2500 originally, expecting this to be top end.

@Sewfrickinamazeballs

Can someone talk to me about structural engineer costs. We have a quote back for one to do the calculations for our extension. We are extending an existing single storey out by a metre, building on top of this and extending to the side by a couple of metres.

First quote back is £3600+Vat so £4320 all in. This is for one site visit and the calculations. I’ve queries with our architect but this seems so expensive to me, but haven’t got any experience to know if it is or not? Anyone have similar?

I've been lurking and will post details about our extension soon (am holding off as I suspect once I start, I'll spend every spare minute here).

Anyway we are NE Scotland. My structural engineer was £2k exc VAT. We are building a 60 sqm single storey extension on stilts at the back of our house with 2 knock throughs and taking down 2 internal walls. That included one site visit, a return to view trial pit (which cos of covid was a video call after my husband dug a hole) and a drainage survey.

Can't say I'm impressed. They did the bare minimum with no consideration of the restrictions of the house and if we'd followed it to the latter our first floor would currently be on our ground floor. Sigh!