Extension Thread 2022....plaster, panic and pics

[Callmejudith]

Slightly naff title but I haven't had enough coffee yet

I contacted our builder in august, @Quebeccles and engaged him in September to start January 2nd. They finished their previous job early and started a week before Christmas. Today they are screeding, Monday the plasterers are in, and the kitchen fit starts on the 20th. We won't finish by the end of the month because I need some more money for flooring and bathroom, and our glazing is delayed which puts back the rendering. Neither of those things is the builders fault though.

I took this builder on after visiting one of their sites, several chats and some reviews. Mainly because he answered messages, provided a timely and efficient quote, and I liked the lads. Several others were a mix of horribly expensive and really crap at replying. My experience with this lot has been overwhelmingly positive. So I say just keep looking!

@LivingInaBuildingSite that’s awful about your friends .

Friend 😟.

Just been having a read through! We are starting the ball rolling for us getting an extension done!
We have had plans drawn up for a single story and two story extension.
Moving here isn’t really an option as we have a really good size garden/ location is brill and all houses have been bought up by Londoners during the pandemic sending prices through the roof.
We have a three story unconventional 4 bed with the bedrooms across the three floors which doesn’t work with a young family.
The guy who has done our plans (and been the one to do the plans for everyone else on our street) has sent the plans off to some builders. Depending on price will depend on which option we go for on the house.
The house worked well with just one child but it doesn’t work with the two of them, and I’m not willing to move one of them out of their bedroom and be next to the front door or alternatively to that two floors below us!
The extension would give us living space all on the one floor, allowing the kids to keep the one floor of bedrooms and then we would move our bedroom to the existing living room, but if we do two story then the living room would be study: ensuite and storage and our bedroom over in the extension if that makes sense!

Nervous and excited to see it starting to happen, feeling very apprehensive to costs! I’m much more realistic than my husband! He thought 20-25k for a single story extension! 😂

Once we know which one we would like to go for we would then put in for planning permission with the hope of starting spring 2023!

@Quebeccles feel you pain!

Do you have full drawings? Our architect told us not to bother trying the talk to a builder until planning permission is granted and full construction drawings are available, as they are so in demand they won’t quote when there are too many uncertainties. Makes sense to me, if a bit eek. I’ve managed to get 2 to say they will quote and both have our full drawings (although planning permission not actually granted yet) but not had either quote yet, so am getting nervous too …

@Quebeccles

Posh your photos (of the finished bits, obvs) look beautiful.

I'm having a major crisis of belief. We're nowhere near doing anything (it's too complicated to explain really so I won't bore anyone with a backstory) but I'm right at the very start of things and have been trying to notionally sound out a couple of builders.

One - after ignoring a message to his website and a phone message, but I rang again and caught him unawares I think - said he wouldn't be able to do anything at all for the rest of this year because he was so booked up. Another has just totally ignored my message. A third - who I do at least know a bit, because he did some very good work on a friend's property - hasn't answered several phone calls and two texts, but has twice promised to ring me back. He hasn't.

I'm just quietly despairing really....Combined with the horror stories I read here and elsewhere about the impossibility of getting people to do anything. If I can't even get any builders to speak to me, what chance do I stand of getting them to do any actual work?

I know I'm catastrophising but there are moments when I can't actually believe it's possible to do this talk sense to me, someone...

Have you got plans, planning permission and calculations? Might be worth emailing these to builders first with some details about what you want to do to show your serious. They have so much work available, this might make your project stand out. I'd put in the email that you will follow up with a call shortly. I emailed about 10 builders, had 6 reply, 4 came out and subsequently quoted. Emailed builders in June 2021, instructed ours in August and he started in January. It's a slog. I hope you have more luck soon.

@LivingInaBuildingSite

Love seeing the photos.

Been swamped recently with work and sad news of a friend who died suddenly in a car crash. Hard to get your head round the suddenness of it.

The guys have been in in droves recently.
The structural stuff for the downstairs loo and pantry cupboard is going in.
The floors came up for the UFH stuff to be laid.
I’m still totally stressing about whether the pantry cupboard will actually work in practical terms. Have i made the most of the space, and so on.

Have also had to pay the next instalment which meant I had to ask my DBro for the loan we discussed back in December, horrible really.

Fencing and rendering hopefully combining to work together in a couple of weeks. Have to let the 3 sets of neighbours know.

My birthday this weekend so trying to detach from all the stress and just drink lots lol 🥂

I'm so sorry to hear about your friend.

@SFHJ

Just been having a read through! We are starting the ball rolling for us getting an extension done! We have had plans drawn up for a single story and two story extension. Moving here isn’t really an option as we have a really good size garden/ location is brill and all houses have been bought up by Londoners during the pandemic sending prices through the roof. We have a three story unconventional 4 bed with the bedrooms across the three floors which doesn’t work with a young family. The guy who has done our plans (and been the one to do the plans for everyone else on our street) has sent the plans off to some builders. Depending on price will depend on which option we go for on the house. The house worked well with just one child but it doesn’t work with the two of them, and I’m not willing to move one of them out of their bedroom and be next to the front door or alternatively to that two floors below us! The extension would give us living space all on the one floor, allowing the kids to keep the one floor of bedrooms and then we would move our bedroom to the existing living room, but if we do two story then the living room would be study: ensuite and storage and our bedroom over in the extension if that makes sense!

Nervous and excited to see it starting to happen, feeling very apprehensive to costs! I’m much more realistic than my husband! He thought 20-25k for a single story extension! 😂

Once we know which one we would like to go for we would then put in for planning permission with the hope of starting spring 2023!

My DH was the same, said £60k should cover it. I laughed. It's getting closer to £280k at the moment

Thanks all. We don’t have plans yet but we’re in the process of getting them drawn up (meeting with the firm to see what they’ve come up with in a fortnight).

The whole thing is complicated unfortunately. Sorry to be vague but I’d be here all day if I tried to explain!

I think we have a builder. He is coming again next Friday. The one I think we are going for is basically a project manager and has all the trade contacts. It's a bit of a leap of faith as you basically pay everyone's day rate and then his margin on top. But he has a QS in house and has priced our job and friends have used them who said they weren't the very cheapest but no where near the most expensive and that they came out near enough on budget. My friends that got a quote are running at £100k over on extras so I think one way or another you are screwed. I have a finite pot of cash so we have to get it watertight, plumbed and floored near enough on budget but I've resigned myself to the fact that we might not be able to afford the fit out I was hoping for. Ours is a big extension (120m2 double storey).

I would have them start tomorrow if I could!!

I'd like to join please!

We put in for planning at the start of December. Discovered this week that architect 'sent to address on the form' which is the old address and apparently council are apologetic and will put us at the front of the queue but still going to take another 2 months for a date. Been trying to speak to someone at the council to verify this but no one answers the number I was given by architect so am feeling a bit suss

We are in a conservation area so expecting them to be ultra slow.

Build is to knock down garage and rebuild on footprint. Will knock kitchen through to have a kitchen diner and put a new bedroom above. Then an attic room the same size as kitchen and garage / first floor bedroom and bathroom. Attic room will be en-suite, taking attic space above existing bedroom 1. Finally we will replace a sagging existing roof and put in a separately accessed attic room above existing bedroom 2. We have builder and just waiting on planning. Raring to go!

@Bloomsburyreader hmm as an architect that doesn't make any sense. Most planning paperwork comes through email these days and is all submitted and registered online. Questions or omissions are usually chased by email or phone.
Check the planning portal (you can check by address) to see when it was submitted because I'm betting they have only just submitted it. 8weeks is the standard determination period and they have to ask you to agree to extend it if they can't determine in that period. Some planning authorities are still running a delay but not usually that much.
Conservation area doesn't usually slow the process that much it just usually increases the volume of paperwork.

I know- it sounded odd to me as well. My architect still hand draws all the initial plans (they are beautiful) so I do believe him but am so gutted to hear it as I could have put everything online for him! I also chased at the beginning of jan and he said to hang tight so I hope he would have realised then that he hadn't applied if that was the problem. He gave me the name of the person he spoke to at the council but I haven't been able to get hold of her despite calling countless times (just to verify his story if nothing else!). I'm really not sure what to do now- apparently this has happened to quite a few people and the paperwork is being forwarded across to the right address (council has moved apparently) and we will be 'put at the front of the queue' but it still holds us up and I have a sick feeling about the whole thing

@wonkylegs how do I search the planning portal for an application? I can only find a way of making an application, not a way of searching for existing ones.

If he's waiting for the paper application to be forwarded I bet it still hasn't gone in. I'm in bits here.

@Bloomsburyreader
It's slightly different on each councils website - let me know your council and I'll find the link for you

@wonkylegs We're in Dorset.

Doing a lot of hair pulling here. We're on a reduced rate of VAT as the house was empty for two years before we bought it but if this all takes too long then we'll have to start paying 20% again and it'll quickly eat into our budget! Hence why I'm feeling very, very worried!

@Bloomsburyreader
It should be on here
planning.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk
On the first page press the yellow accept button which should take you through to an option to search by address

@wonkylegs thank you! As suspected, nothing there so we have lost another week as I chased him Monday. I've emailed him again and asked for an application number but sure he won't have one. So gutted. And this is just the start of the process!

@Bloomsburyreader I think even if he submitted paper copies which is rare these days he would have checked when he hadn't had confirmation that it had been validated within a week or so, that's normal due diligence.
I always check in and chase applications just to make sure the council don't drag their feet.
It must be very frustrating for you but I would suggest if you are having these problems now you are going to need to keep on top of things with your architect as he clearly doesn't understand the importance of your timescales in the same way you do. Make sure you have everything in writing, even follow up calls with an email "just to confirm what was said".
Does he do all his drawings by hand including construction drawings? If so you need to lock in and firm things up quite quickly as revisions could be slow.
I'm quite capable of drawing by hand, that's how I started my career (yes I'm no spring chicken) but I keep it to sketches these days just because the efficiencies of the process mean it's not practical.

Can you give me your opinions please?
I have a false drawer line integrated dishwasher door to site in between 2 x 800 drawer units. Both of the drawer units each side have 3 drawers with 2 cup pulls on each drawer. DH and I are disagreeing about whether or not the dishwasher door should have one cup pull, two cup pulls or one cup and one knob. We have pulls on drawers and knobs on doors for the test of the kitchen
In the two pictures I have put a smiley face for a cup pull and a blue splodge for the knob
What looks best please or should we not bother to out anything on the false drawer/cupboard bit at the bottom?

Should have spell checked that but I was too concerned with attaching the right pictures 😁

@Bloomsburyreader

I'd like to join please!

We put in for planning at the start of December. Discovered this week that architect 'sent to address on the form' which is the old address and apparently council are apologetic and will put us at the front of the queue but still going to take another 2 months for a date. Been trying to speak to someone at the council to verify this but no one answers the number I was given by architect so am feeling a bit suss

We are in a conservation area so expecting them to be ultra slow.

Build is to knock down garage and rebuild on footprint. Will knock kitchen through to have a kitchen diner and put a new bedroom above. Then an attic room the same size as kitchen and garage / first floor bedroom and bathroom. Attic room will be en-suite, taking attic space above existing bedroom 1. Finally we will replace a sagging existing roof and put in a separately accessed attic room above existing bedroom 2. We have builder and just waiting on planning. Raring to go!

I hope you get the planning sorted. Does sound like your architect isn't on top of things. Why not do it online? Even hand drawn plans can be scanned in surely?

Ooo that’s a hard one actually @sluj. My initial instinct was one cup at the top in the middle. One knob in the same place would also work.

@sluj I think just one cup in the middle at the top too (I think a cup will open a dishwasher more easily than a handle)