The builders are in.....share the ups and downs here.....

[nappyzonecantrunfortoffee]

Been as though a few of us have the builders in i thought we could share our fun and try and get through the mire together (even though pavlos stories scared me half to shit).

SO were getting an extension built and they started Wednesday - they seem canny and we have a digger in our garden, guinea pigs at the back of the garedn i have to risk life and limb for to get too to feed and mud - loads of mud - my wellies are caked in the stuff from my guinea pig feeding missions!

Our foundations are all dug out now and most excitingly a mixy truck load of cement was barrowed round the back in to them. Wheres everyone else at?

oh ours is just a 2 storey square jobby on the back with a few big windows - thats not to first fix - first fix adds another 5k to the job overall. still its cheaper than moving. We live oooop north.

Nappy & LordV where do you live (roughly), does the price vary according to this? I am in Scotland so hoping it will be a bit cheaper...

I'm thinking summer is prob best for us as we have 2 under 2's and given the heating will be off since boiler will be away I doubt we could cope if it was done in the cold months. Yikes the more i think about it the mores scared I get at all the logistics. We are getting the current side off the house (currently has front door & tiny hall at front and back door & tiny utility area at back) in order to then extend into this area, but I am worried because the first things to go will be the washing machine, boiler & both entrances to the house! How will we get in and out?! Would they build the shell of the extension before they knock down the current side bit IYKWIM?

Hmmm, lots to think about but it is able to be done somehow The neighbours have done it so I must ask them how they did it.

Are any of you moving out during your build?

PS Nappy, what do you reckon it is per m sq all in? ie with a new bathroom, decoration etc?

what is first fix?

we are not moving out , the shell of ours is being built on the back then he will seal up all rooms affected as they knock thrugh - how long this process takes i have no idea but realise this is when it will become hell. He has said 12 weeks ish overall. i suppose the rest depends on your tastes and size of prperty. i think first fix is built and plastered with basic elecs and plumbing though i could be talking out my ass. With ours we gettign boiler replaced, new bathroom fitted (which we have bought) , recessed lights, rads, plastered to new rooms and the likes making it say oooooo 700-800 per m2 with us buying basthroom self and fancy towel rads. We is in the north east. We tried to get rond about quotes before we set of on our project but they were miles out compared to ones after we got plans drawn up. Then people take you seriously. We had oodles of quotes and gettign them to actually come out to us was the hardest part!

I have no idea how much ours is costing per sq m but is 23k all in for rebuild of garage and small side extension, one storey only. This takes us to plastered walls, and all electrics and plumbing. The price also includes the fitting of the kitchen, but we will provide the actual units and appliances.
We aren't moving out - it isn't too disruptive at the moment - they are just building the shell and rebuilding the garage. It will be when they knock through after Christmas that it gets messy and disruptive.

yes i can handle most things but when they knock thrugh into the upstairs it will put bathroom and 2 kdis bedrooms out of use so 4 of us will share our bedroom unless we can squeeze a bed into my office/ storeroom and all clean in the tiny ensuite. It will be an adventure for the kids to sleep on the floor! He has said minimum disruption and will knock a room at a time but i cant see this happening really.

ilikes is it a straight fwd build on or a fancy pants half a mansion jobby?

I wish I knew how much it is per m2 but I have no idea . Our budget is about 65k, but that includes a new kitchen, 2 new bathrooms, new boiler etc. The extension is 3.6m x 5.8m x 2 storeys ... anyone do the maths?

Ilike - starting in November would not have been my first choice, and our boiler died on the first day of the build so we've not had central heating for nearly two weeks now. If I'd known it was going to happen it would have been a deal breaker. But actually, it's been fine without heating and we're not in a rush to get the boiler replaced.

Nappyzone - I can't see the pics on your profile. I'm going to try to put some pics on my profile, just give me a few mins.

Nappy- we live in a bog standard 1970's 3 bedroom square detached house. From the front view it looks like a cube with the front door / hall as a small side extension of the main house IYKWIM? So that will get knocked down and a 2 storey will be put in its place, giving us a downstairs loo, utility room and making the current kitchen/diner a lot bigger. Upstairs will be a 4th bedroom added with a lovely big ensuite.

I'd also love a small single storey at the rear but doubt we will have the £ for this. The first architect is coming tomorrow so I'll be asking rough costs. The architect who drew the original plans is them coming on Friday, I'm hoping he will seem decent and won't charge us much for some tweaking of the plans since they've been done already

I am v excited though- we have been here for 2 years and not really thought about it but since DS2 arrived in July we are feeling cramped!

Yikes cake ours will be about 15m2 more than yours and I was hoping it would be around 50-60k all in!

Ilike - we are in Hertfordshire and have fairly expensive tastes . The kitchen takes up 10k of the budget, but after 6yrs of the most pathetic kitchen in the world we are spoiling ourselves!
Pictures are on profile hopefully, let me know if they are not there cos I'm a bit of a luddite!

cake whats with the blue skys? ours is all dull and muddy! some pics but nothing to see, ones at end of week should show more as slab going down when up to dpc.

Well that's the first architect been for an initial consultation and he estimated that the 2 storey side ext would be at least £80k plus he then charges 14% on top of that! I discussed the idea of a small rear extension too but given out house is slightly raised (there is a cellar about 3ft high under the house) we would need to move the back steps inside and therefore half the proposed rear room would be the stairs!

So maybe not the best idea I had.

The bloke who drew the original plans is coming on Friday so if he seems OK we will prob just go with him and we won't need to reapply for PP if we aren't doing the rear extension. Hooray!

So can I ask, what's after getting planning permission? Is it the building warrant or do we start looking for builders? Any idea of the timescales? I'm on M/L til May so I'm thinking it would be good to have it all done by then, do you think that is do-able?

Ouch Ilike, that's a lot. I think our top estimate came in at that sort of amount too. We were lucky that our architect is a friend so he did the plans for mates rates!

Our architect applied for building regs for us. It took about three weeks.

Getting it all done by May seems just about do-able if you can find a builder who is free after xmas. I go back to work at the end of March. I'm thinking that the builders will be finished with us at the start of Feb, giving me a few weeks to paint, furnish and just enjoy the house.

Nappy - no blue skies here today. It's horrible.

Like the pics - it's really funny seeing someone at a similar stage to us.

Our bricks arrived yesterday so the brickie is starting on the walls today. Seems to be going at snails pace tho and I'm so not in the mood today

bad moods here too - our neighbours fence has come down where we detached our gate which was basically holding their rotten fence up - no backlash yet but i know its coming. Our bricks have arrived today too and block work coming on but not at dpc level yet. ouch ilike thats alot - jeez is it cheaper to move? THe quotes can go from extremems - we had as low as 30k and as high as 55k and settled at the lower end but not the lowest. Soem builders just wanted our eye sockets!

The quote of £80k is from the architect though, not the builder so I'm hoping he is overestimating??? (oh there's a pig flying by). His company are currently building what looks like a several million £ house in the next village so I think they normally do high end houses, we just want an average type one that works for us, nothing too snazzy really!

It will be interesting to see what the other architect on Friday says. Don't think it would be cheaper to move, there was a house just sold 5 houses down from us that has an ext to the side too, maybe a bit bigger than ours will be and it went for £150 more than what ours is currently worth, yikes. At least with extending we wil get the money back whereas we would lose loads in fees for moving.

It will be a total PITA to do but I'm hoping it would be worth it!

Don't want to shoot the flying pigs but our architect's estimate was almost exactly the average of the quotes we received. I can't believe how much the architect wanted to charge you for his services - we paid our friend £1400 plus £900 for the structural engineer!!

Bad luck about the fence nappyzone. Touch wood our neighbours have been ok so far. Will your builder have to put the fence back up?

We now have 10 courses of exterior bricks on one side of the extension!!! Spent the afternoon drinking coffee at a friend's house so I've cheered up a bit

The post in question was rotten beyond beleif and has been propped up a few times by my dh as if it goes they leave it as not arsed, outof good will the builder has braced it, when our gate goes back non it will get mroe strength again but it wont be long before it all goes - not our problem really. we have bricks too leading up to dpc - concrete slab goingin friday woo hoo!

I kind of told thebuilder to fix fence so they couldnt moan then felt bad and went out and said sorry im not normally that bothered but lack of sleep turns me into a cow by which time he already had. Awww hes lovely.

Your builder sounds fab. Mine are nice, but they seem to have lots of traumas. The brickie was kicked out by his girlfriend at the weekend and the labourer was evicted from his flat cos the landlord forgot to pay the mortgage . And we get some wierd requests - have had to find them matches, tomato ketchup, washing up liquid, pencils ...

ooh and rennies. that's been my favourite request so far.

oh god, I'm feeling uncomfortable today. Been asked to lend the labourer £40 to get him thru to pay day tomorrow - apparently he was going to be given an advance by the boss but the boss isn't on site today so he hasn't got it. I've been going by the theory of being as nice as possible to keep them working well, but this feels a bit dodgy

Hi Cake, that does sound weird, surely he could have asked a mate for a loan? Not sure what I would have done in that situation either. Hopefuly tomo you will get your £40 back.

I've just emailed a local builders for a quote on our extension, I'm thinking it would be good to book someone for say Feb and I'm not sure how far in advance you need to book builders? Any advice? How many quotes did you get before going with a partic company?

Oh and are you all project managing yourself or not? Is it best to just get one company that does everything? Or should we subcontract?

Cake and have you? i wouldnt just say you havent got it cheeky buger! ilike i asked our works noticeboard if anyone had recommendations for builders (i work for a large organisation) and so got about 30 recommendations and a few to keep away from - i emiled them all or rang them and sent emailable versions of our plans where possible , about 12 got back to me, some made arrangements tocome and see the site and didnt turn up so they got binned stright away and some quotes were a fantasy. Our bloke is project managing it all so has sparkys and plumbers ready to fit bathroom and boilers etc.. at the right time. His quote was a bit higher than some others when he gave us it and we told him so but that we trusted him and had a good rapport and were a bit dissapointed as we wanted him to do the job - he shaved of 8k to get the job.