Loft extension - what is your experience?

[Bountifulbarbie]

We'd need to move out. How long do you think it would take and we'd need to move out for? It's to put two new bedrooms in at the top of a terraced house, moving the ridge line up by about a foot.

What has your experience been?

Out of interest, why would you need to move out? Obviously if you have a spare house, or lots of money, then fair enough, but having a loft conversion is far less disruptive than having a new kitchen or something like that.

We're almost at the end of doing an L-shaped loft conversion in a Victorian terrace. 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. They started the second week of January, so that gives you some idea of the timing. There have been a few delays owing to poor weather, but three to four months is a good estimate for the time it will take.

They need to lower ceilings so bedrooms will be out of action.We l have to move in with my parents so going to be hard but worst will be the commute to kids schools

We've just had an L-shaped loft conversion done and it took about 4 months in total, although our ceilings didn't have to come down so that might add some time onto your build. To be honest, if I could've moved out during the work then I would've because it was so dusty and stressful so I think that's maybe a blessing in disguise!

We had a loft conversion where we lowered the ceilings. We moved out for 3 weeks into my parents whilst they took the roof off, built the dormer, and rebuilt the ceilings, but it was awful moving back in when work was still going on. Our total build took 5 months (was supposed to be 11 weeks but this was 2022 and we got caught up in some of the supply issues at the time). If we ever do it again, i would be more in favour of getting a rental for 4-6months and only moving back in when everything is totally finished.

We did ours and it was brilliant. Took about 9 weeks, didn’t move out (but didn’t need to lower ceilings). They did it all from the roof in. There were 2 days when they broke through that they asked us to leave for and they did it at the weekend so we just moved to the local travelodge for 2 nights.

That sounds good, did they have a special system, or were they just very organised and good?

Can I ask what sort of money it was?

Ours also worked from the outside in, and broke through in about week 4 or 5.

Our L-shape conversion, all in, is coming out at about £100k. That includes air conditioning, paint, new carpets and built in wardrobe.