Porch extension!

[Reeja]

Hi all,

We are looking to buy a house in London and it seems that whatever we find in our budget requires a lot of work, which we don’t particularly mind.

I have noticed that many properties don’t have a porch - as in, once you open the door you’re in the house without any real place to hang jackets or place shoes. I find this odd as I’m from abroad and houses with porches are so common.

this brings me to my question - I’ve been told my real estate agents that it’s very easy to get a porche extension done, have any of you done this? If so, would you mind sharing some costs and pictures?

google is great but the prices I’m seeing are ranging on a very wide spectrum! Would appreciate any help you can provide :)

There was a TV programme on tonight called The Worst House in the Road. They added a porch and it cost, from memory, £4795.

It was just closing off one side of a cube with a new front door and a tall piece of glass (narrower than a door) each side.

Nice, but oh so expensive.

I can’t help with price, but I believe in most circumstances (that is, unless the building is listed or in a conservation area), a porch is allowed under permitted development, which means you don’t need to apply for planning permission.

So yes, it’s very easy from a bureaucracy perspective. That doesn’t mean finding a builder to do it will be easy or cheap.

~£5000 does sound steep considering all the other renovations we need to do! I guess this will be the last on the list to consider haha

thank youuu

We had a porch quoted at £13k but it was quite big and included heating, insulation and removing the front wall inside and supporting with a small beam. I didn't want a porch added on where you'd then have two doors to open. It depends what you want really?

My parents is maybe 2 sq m and was £6000.

It can be very simple if the house has not been extended at all and permitted development rights are used as no planning permission is required. However, our house has previously been extended so is full PP and Building control etc with full drawings.

Re cost....yes costs have rocketed in the last 2-3 years. So glad we did our major work 5 years ago. To have the same done now as ours, our neighbour was quoted more than double what we paid...an additional £80k. That isnt all reflected in materials...it is just demand and lack of decent builders.

You could get lucky if you are flexible as it is the sort of job a building could slot in to fill a gap

It is the cost of materials! Some building materials are 2-3 times more expensive than 2 years ago. A labour shortage has increased costs too. It’s a difficult time to get any work done!

Recently quoted £3000. Barely room to move and no room for the amount of shoes and coats i have.

It would keep heat in the house I suppose,