Support thread for those crazy enough to be extending their homes this year!

[ilikeyoursleeves]

Hiya, after hijacking another thread about massive extensions (not massive erections LOL) there seems to be a few of us who are about to embark on building projects this year. So if you are one of them come join in so we can share all the excitement, nervousness and bewilderment at everything that needs done!

We are currently awaiting quotes from builders for a two storey side extension plus a single storey at the rear. We had our first quote in today which is £64k. Not sure if this is good or bad, it will be interesting to compare the quotes when they are all in. We are also awaiting planning permission but should get it fine as our house already has planning for the extension that came with the sale of the house (but we had to resubmit as we have changed it a bit). Awaiting a building warrant too.

I'm very excited but frankly crapping it re the costs as we are going to have to remortgage plus DS2 will start nursery so we will have 2 lots of chilcare costs too.

ARGH!!!

So I for one need my hand held throughout all this process I just keep thinking of the end product and hoping it will all be fine.

What's everyone else doing and when?

Yes, definitely worth asking each builder what they do for the money - so many bits I hadn't even thought of (removing the deck, etc).

We've had the back of the house underpinned this week, yeay! Now our builder has to finish a loft elsewhere, giving us time to get that wretched Party Wall Award...I hope...[frustrated]

I can't imagine the whole back of the house off - its already gone from nicely presented for sale purposes to building site, and thats before the footings have been dug

Builder #2 came back with a quote of £62.5k so pretty similar to our other quote. He went to school with DH and did SIL's extension a few years back, plus says he uses some guys who aren't VAT registered so we could save money that way. The only thing holding me back from builder#2 though is that his joiner is meant to be rubbish (according to a neighbour who had work done by him). So I might see if we can use the builder but not the joiner, not sure if we can do that though? Don't really see why not though since we are paying for it!

What's underpinning Elibean? I didn't realise you had actually started doing work- exciting!

Nope, no Lawful Development Certificate yet. How well-defined do my plans have to be before I can submit to get that? [least prepared person on the thread emoticon]

Had a chat with plumber today after he did my boiler and gas fire, he suggested I get a builder to do some of the excavating to see what we're working with in the main drain along the back of the house.

Done the RIBA postcode thing. Wrote to about six of them, some of them didn't really work in our area so I must be right on the edge of an area. Anyway, one or two are mildly interested but I think I should be going with surveyor+builder really.

What does project managing involve? Would a site meeting at the start and end of the day work?

I have no idea what a Law Development Certificate is! Sorry...

I also don't really know what project managing involves either. I just know it's a lot of money for not much work- I think it's the architect ensuring the builders are sticking to the plans or something? My architect was going to charge £2k to PM, and this was 'periodic' checking in, not even day to day meetings. My architect said that he will no doubt call the builders now and then anyway so he didn;t think we needed him to PM.

I think whether you need a PM depends on how orgainised you are and how big your project is? I could of course be talking utter crap and be wishing we had a PM in a few months time!

Sleeves,...velux are great for thorowing bags of light into dark space.

But bear in mind that if you have a planning permission already which does not include the velux you will need to apply to have it (and any other external changes)approved formally as a non-material amendment. If you do not, or if you apply retrospectively and it is not approved, the planning authority will require you to remove it.

A PM organises what gangs and kit need to be on site when, what order work is done and co-ordinates the whole build to come within the timescale and budget as well as organise building control inspections. if your builder is eitherhimself providing (or subcontracting himself directly with) plumbers, electrictians, joiners,roofers, plasterers etc then on a fairly standard residential extension I would not have thought you would need project management (Happy to be contradicted by more experienced folk though!)

If you are contracting directly with each of the mentioned trades to save costs, then you need to PM yourself (you need to be available to visit site most days) or appoint a PM to bring it all together.

...just thought this was a bit cute.

As you were,...

Lexi have you tried a thread on here asking for recommendations of architects in your area? That was something else I did and we got about 3 recommendations.

Have any of you or your family neighbours etc got work colleagues who have had work done - who did their plans - were they happy?

We took an age to choose someone

I think what littlepushka says is right re project management.

The builder we are probably going to have actually doesn't do much himself, but he has all of his contacts and he orders the stuff and hires the plant and co-ordinates all the workers being here at the right time. I guess he has built a premium into his quote to cover a % for him.

If you knew digger people and roofers and that sort of thing and were doing it separately then you'd need to coordinate it.

I don't think an architect would do all that though - so what they do when they project manage I guess is just come and check they're doing it right?

Ok now I'm too

Well, have spent two hours this morning with the kitchen designer tweaking plans, deciding on cupboard doors and handles, discussing lighting etc and he is now off to do a costing for us. The builder who came round last weekend to give us a quote for the works is one who works with the kitchen guy quite often so this will hopefully make the project a bit easier. Now I just have to wait for the prices! I foresee we will take a look and immediately start downgrading applicances, removing plinth lighting and persuading ourselves that we really didn't need so many cupboards after all.

Lexi, I think we had drawings from architect and drawings from structural engineer, before applying for perm. dev. certificate. They definitely need drawings, because they put them on their website. Neighbours are not consulted, but they ahve a right to make comments on the website, I think.

The other thing you may or may not want to put into action once you have drawings is a Party Wall Award, if you need one. Which depends on whether you're building within a certain distance of a party wall. Its shocking how fast I forget things where all this is concerned

Sleeves, I think the underpinning is to support the weight of the extension being built on to the back of the house?? As I'm not (thankfully, in my case, 'cos I'd be hopeless) project managing, there are lots of things I'm clueless about - I can tell you all about certain types of party wall awards, fireplaces and building regs for ex-garage doors, but not underpinnings

It IS exciting, though it will be even more exciting when we have the Award and can start the Real Work!!

Can I ask about the party wall thing? We are in a detached house so I didn't think that applied to us but we will be building up to about 25cm from the fence between us and next door- would we require a party wall thing then? Our architect hasn't mentioned one though so I assume we don't?

Another qu- how much can we haggle on builders costs? We have had some quotes in but do you think I could try to get some money off? We are on an ultra tight budget you see so any savings really count. I was thinking of telling builder#2 that his quote is practically the same as builder#1 but builder#1 also included UFH & a velux- so could builder#2 either erduce his price or add these things in for us.

Or would that be very cheeky of me?

The architect has told us we might need a party wall agreement on both sides - we are in a semi - so even the non attached side.

The gap is about 1.5m between the houses I'm not sure what the rules are? It's somethng to do with if your foundations are being dug lower than theirs or something I didn't really follow

I also expect you are supposed to haggle with buiders but on the other hand I wouldn't as I'm crap at all that.

Sleeves, can't help with haggling (our builder is a friend, and we know he's given us a good price) but re Party Walls: if you're building within 3m of your neighbour's foundations, and your foundations are going to go lower than theirs, you DO need to serve them with a party wall notice.

I wouldn't rely on an architect to mention it, though - ours didn't have a clue about party wall matters, and neither did our buyer's when we sold our last house (they were planning an extension and never served notice, resulting in a row!).

Eek I better ask the architect about the Party Wall thing then. We will be within 3m of next door but hopefully our foundations won't be lower. If we need it does it cost more money? I am getting so sick of all these hidden fees, we have spent about £5k so far without a brick being laid ARGH.

party wall stuff I just found. Looks like you have to give notice at least 4 weeks before work starts.

I also imagine that if things are straightforward then there are cheap "off the peg" type ones you can use? That's a guess though...

ISNT I think the Lawful Dev Cert is the same as Perm Dev Cert etc etc. Basically a piece of paper at the start of the process that says you're not going to need PP. Not to replace Building Regs Completion Certificate, but useful (I'm told) when it comes to sell, and they say "can you prove you got planning permission for that?" "no, I can prove I didn't need it AND got completion certificate."

Plumber the other day servicing our boiler suggested we get a general builder to excavate a bit outside the back wall of the house to see what the drains etc are like. There are about four downpipes which we need to tidy up - wastes from the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen. We'll also need to put in an access manhole. All good stuff we can do well before the actual build.

Think we'll have to do the party wall thing too. Thanks for the tip, whoever that was!

Oh ps I did start a thread asking for architect recommendations. Nobody answered.

Party Wall Award needn't cost lots of money, but it rather depends on your neighbours I'm afraid....its up to them whether they are ok with the building project, in which case they can sign the papers (via PW Surveyor or off the peg, either is fine) within 14 days saying they're ok with it.

OR they have a variety of other options, which can get increasingly expensive if your neighbours are either anxious or obstructive! Worst case, you end up having to pay different surveyor to do independent survey for the neighbours.

We employed a Party Wall Surveyor from the outset, because we knew our neighbours were going to be cross/anxious about extensions...nothing has changed in that little row of houses for at least 50 years, and they are all elderly. We hoped if he wrote to the neighbours, and offered to take photographic survey of their properties pre-building works, that would be enough - but no

Still, some charge a LOT more than others, so worth asking around! Hopefully your neighbours will not object, and simply sign the papers in teh first place. Worth checking about the 'lower foundations' bit, I'm not so sure about that but there are websites that explain it all very clearly.

And agree with Lexi re the perm/lawful development certificate...useful for selling in the future, and also if neighbours start being obstructive!

We are getting planning permission and building regs as well so I don't think that is anything to do with permitted deveopment?

Planning permission should be through in a week hopefully, has been delayed for more than a month with the council so we're just fingers crossed it goes through at committee...

No, yo'ure right - if you're going for planning permission, you're not going for permitted development. Two different things, its either or

Thankfully our house is the only house in our little row that hasn't been extended yet, the 2 neighbouring houses have done the exact same extension. Our immediate neighbours only extended a few years ago and know we are planning it for this summer and are absolutely fine with it, they have given us advice etc about it too which is fab. We will have scaffolding in their garden but it will be up the side of their house so won't really impact them at all (she says hopefully...).

Sorry only just got back to this.

sleeves Our best quote is £62k and our highest quote is £112k. The 2 middle of the road quotes were £72k and £78k. We're going with the lowest quote but he's a mate and as you can tell he's giving us mates rates. He's also project manageing for us in that price. Not sure of our sq m at moment, I'm away so don't have the plans to hand to look it up.

We have needed to get a party wall agreement with the neighbours we're not attached to. We're moving a large retaining wall right up to the boundary. The neighbour feels the whole thing is a waste of time, doesn't understand why its needed. So I just printed him out an agreement letter and asked him to sign it which he did.

Not sure when we are going to start. Planning should come through any day now. But we've had a slight spanner thrown into the works, dh has been made redundant. So no extension until he's got a job. He's done all the diy cheap and free stuff since being off now so needs a job, not got much else to put him to work on! In fact, if any one in the nw needs a average diy'er to come and do anything he's willing and able. Just never ask him to put shelves up!!!

Can I join? Did extension on previous house and then sold it a few years after to move 2 miles down the road !! Mad?

Also just did major groundfloor refurb of existing house.

Two points:

1)Add at least 50pc (if not double) to any quote in your mind as a contingency and ensure that you can cope if it eventually gets there.

2)Our previous neighbour was really helpful with the party-wall procedure and allowed our architect to do their documentation etc. in order to keep costs down.

Anyone planning underfloor heating?

hello tdiddy

you seem like the voice of experience!

we are going to have ufh please don't tell me stories of doom!

Yes, we are looking at having underfloor heating installed in our kitchen extension. We had our plumber come round and discuss and we are waiting for him to come back with a quote. Any thoughts?