Cellar conversions - please tell me the good and the bad please.

[Wowthatwasabigstep]

We are currently renovating our house, complete refurbishment from the roof down. It is a 5 bed Victorian house with high ceilings and good sized rooms which will go on the market once completed as we want more outside space.

The cellar currently has a wine store, store room, pantry and large utility. The electrician was chasing wires from the hallway down into the cellar and opened a hatch which we have ignored for years and discovered two rooms which sit under our lounge and the dining room.

My thoughts have so far leap to creating a cinema room/man cave/teenager den type space.

I am experienced with renovating properties so the work wouldn’t frighten me just want a heads up as to potential issues.

what was the purpose of those spaces originally? Victorian Houses often had a dry and a wet cellar eg one for storing cold things or coal, and the wet one to manage the water table eg to let it flood then dry out depending on the weather and keep the house safe.
if its a wet cellar then leave as is or you will cause massive issues for the property.

I wouldn’t see the point in doing it just to sell. The costs involved are enormous. I don’t think you’d make your money back.

We had a cellar in our previous Victorian house and made a little wine store/gin bar in part of it. We cut a hole in the floor of the room above and put a piece of strengthened glass in so you could see down into it. It was so cool. I'll try to attach photos.

Make sure the cellar has suitable ventilation or is tanked if you need it to be.

I am not entirely sure, at the moment there are some crates with bottles in and lots of earth. All looks very dry and has good head height. Need to send out smallest builder in to get some more photographs.

The cost would be in digging down, getting rid of the soil, insulation, fire boarding, concrete and labour. The rest of cellar already has a door to the outside directly from the utility and a window beside the door.

We are not in London but in an expensive town so might be worth doing.

What a fabulous use of space and so light.

I wouldn’t do it if the next step is selling. BUT having it in the floor plan and details with a “could be converted into…subject to the relevant planning and regulations” will add value in it’s own right

Even if you're in the most expensive area of the country, it's unlikely to be worth your while converting a cellar for what's at best a windowless bonus room.

If you're planning to sell it immediately, it will not pay for itself.

How high are the ceilings in the cellars?

Ceilings are currently just under 6 foot so I would need to dig down. Having to get planning or permitted development granted would be annoying and delay things.

Don’t do it then. I would not be digging out a Victorian basement. That’s got red flags all over it.

If you're selling once the main reno's done, I'd leave those two rooms alone beyond making them tidy and dry for storage. Digging a Victorian cellar down from under 6ft is a different beast to converting an already decent cellar.

The risks that bite people

• Digging under existing foundations – you need temporary support and often a structural engineer, and you can unsettle the house above if it's not sequenced properly.
• Waterproofing once you dig and finish the space as a room, you've changed how moisture moves. Tanking or cavity drain systems aren't cheap and need proper ventilation or a pump, otherwise you get damp and mould in a windowless room.
• Head height after insulation and a proper floor build-up often eats more than people expect – you dig for decent clear height and end up with less.
• Building regs (and sometimes planning) for habitable space, fire escape and so on – slower and costlier than a storage tidy-up.

For resale, listing "cellar rooms with potential to convert (subject to regs)" usually gets you most of the buyer interest without spending conversion money you won't get back. Spend the budget on the main floors where buyers actually feel the value.