Loft conversions

[Elektra1]

I’m in the process of buying a house in which I’ll need to convert the loft. Lots of the other houses on the road have done this so I don’t expect any planning issues but I’ve never done any structural building work before. Should I get one of those companies which specialises in loft conversions, or just a local builder? What sort of questions should I ask?

I would ask to physically go and look at other examples of work that they’ve done even if you’re only looking from the outside
But ideally, I would want to knock the door talk to the owners and ask them if they were happy
There are arguments for and against using loft conversion companies, You’ve got a price it all up and make a decision, but I would have at least three builders and at least three loft conversion companies round and get quotes of all of them.

Do not be fooled by the Sales persons chatter some builders are very good at making you laugh and not so good at making you a loft conversion

Definitely get a company that specialises in loft conversions. Knock on the door of a few of your neighbours and ask for recommendations.

Thanks good advice. I suppose having a loft conversion company has the advantage that they deal with all the party wall and planning stuff and manage all the contractors, whereas I assume with a builder I’d be doing at least the first 2 of those things. Wonder if there’s much difference in cost between the two

I would imagine you will pay a premium for the all-inclusive service
But of course that doesn’t mean that they necessarily get it right.
The best piece of advice I can give you is to put at least £101 of it on your credit card even if that means the builder has to take a PayPal account payment of £101 because then Visa and MasterCard will insure it
When you’re talking tens of thousands of pounds I would also look into taking out separate insurance to cover the lot. Phone up your buildings cover and see if they can add some extra for you.

We used a design and planning team called home tales who are specialists in extensions and lofts, they provided the structural plans we used as a sort of tender pack which we took to various builders our friends and neighbours had recommended. I do think this worked best for us, it made the costing more transparent being able to breakdown and compare quotes.