Home Renovation - question

[Treezan82]

We are thinking of doing quite a big renovation of our house. Before we decide to go ahead we need to price the work and consider against the cost of moving (although our house is in the perfect location).

The work is - a side extension replacing the porch, including downstairs toilet.
Back extension to replace conservatory and increase size of kitchen/diner (therefore new kitchen layout)
Loft conversion

My question is - do we need an architect to draw up plans? Or could we just ask a building company to come and price it?

Thanks!

Bump

A builder has to quote off drawings, and if you want an accurate quote you need to be very specific about materials. Plus you should have a structural engineer to work out what supports you need - they can be significant cost. Last thing you want is for a builder to give you a vague figure and then add in stuff that should have been there in the first place.
If you get a one stop shop in they may ask for a refundable fee if you eventually use them.
If looking for a vague ball park figure then it's about £2000m2 for new (shell, not including finishes or whatever you are putting in there). Add whatever the cost is your kitchen, and plumbing, electrics, fitting, flooring. Loft conversions near me (SW London ) are about £40 for basic up to £80k for en suite and nice finishes.
So I'd say ballpark £120k minimum, but it could easily be £150k or more. Depends where you are too.

I had £150k in my head so your estimate is encouraging. So sounds like architecture drawings are necessary and the first step. Thanks for your insight!

We did a simple rear extension and I did the drawings myself to save architect money. It was over a sewer so needed full plan application to the council.

It saved us a massive amount of money but it was hard work for me (on top of second pregnancy and full time working) doing the scales properly and adding in the right info to make it all work to building regs. Also did the calculations myself.

Overall I'm glad we saved the money but it was hard work and if we paid someone, it would've been less stressful.

How did you learn to do it yourself, are you in that field or just researched it? Also, is it a lot of money? Thanks!

I did a crap load of research- I'm a chemist and we've dabbled in DIY for a lot of years so guess I had enough knowledge alongside supplementing it with research.
You can also get help from student architects who often do a massively reduced rate in order to build experience- sometimes they even advertise on here

I think there are some design and build companies who might be able to provide you with an approximate price without drawings, but you will need drawings to get a more accurate figure (and if you need planning permission).

When we moved into our house, I contacted a couple of builders to discuss work we wanted to do. Neither would quote without architect drawings. I then needed a very detailed spec of work to make sure the quotes were accurate.

The budget I gave the architect has been entirely blown!! Building work at the moment is extortionate, but our architect got totally carried away.

The PP above has good advice to do your own drawings for the quote stage. I wasted so much money (£15k!!) getting drawings done that don't actually represent the work we're now going to do 🤦🏼‍♀️

We're currently planning a rear extension to make a bigger kitchen diner. We initially thought we could just get quotes from different builders but it became clear quite quickly that they all have different ideas of what they typically do and therefore it's been really hard to compare quotes (there's more than £15k difference between the top and bottom and aesthetically the designs all look quite similar). So we then got quotes from architects which ranged from drawings for £500 to a complete package including VR tech etc for £1500. We've gone with the cheaper option but have faith that having one specific design specification will make it easier to get compatible quotes from builders.