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?

ImSoNotTelling Great that you got your planning permission . We're doing the party wall stuff ourselves. Its really not rocket science in most cases. Just make sure you give enough notice.

TDiddy Do you think so about the EX VAT?

Disagree about the Ex Vat thing. It just meants the price excluding vat - which is the way all professional quotes are given.

The quote should also say whether VAT at the current rate will be charged - (which it must be if the builder is vat registered).

Starting work in nine little weeks! Hurrah

I'msonottelling congrats to you!

Am away too, and on silly laptop making endless typos, so just wishing you all well and will catch up next week....by which time hopefully we will have a sniff of a party wall award...

Can I join? We've 'nearly finished' the loft conversion from hell. Short version: should have been complete before ds was born. Ds is 19 months now... when he was 5 weeks the HV tried to reassure me that I was doing fine if ds was feeding and had a cot and a roof over his head. "I don't have a roof!" I wailed and burst into tears...

Still to go: getting proper permission for our balcony as turned out the builder lied when he said it had been approved. Council guy said if we provide the arithmetic showing the extension is within permitted devt, they won't look too closely, but we still need to do that. We can't get the cert of legality for the whole thing without replacing all the internal doors in the rest of the house, and the council keep disagreeing on what we need to do, and we're not spending thousands on a dozen fire doors if it's not really needed.

Picked out carpet today - MrNC agreed on one, so that's progress. Once the two bedrooms are done then we can move everything around below and ds can finally have his own room!!

Only advice to people starting is when your builder says they're registered with a trade body, phone the body up and check - don't trust the notepaper! Even if they've done an excellend job on the house down the road...

LOL at notcitrus health visitor "moment"!! But well done for MrNC picking carpet... MrPushka cannot pick a bloomin' daffodil without first having a risk assessment and a national referendum!

notcitrus - had the same issue with nice builder from down the road but on a small issue about approval for a small thing but was lucky to get away with it. Very sorry that you have had such a bad time!

chesham, bucks...but Amersham is better connected

Joining in a bit late here. We are doing a 1.5 storey extension to the side - integral garage plus similar width of study/utility, bedroom/ensuite upstairs, some messing about with rest of house including solar water heating.

An architect has done our plans but I am fine tuning them as I'm very fussy so I had better get on with it. And we haven't even spoken to more than one builder yet, and want to get the work done over the summer.

Thanks Pushka - wasn't funny at the time, but HV was lovely and came round to the house as well as packing me off to the doctor.

Turns out the carpet MrNC wants is hideously expensive but if it makes him happy...

At some point we will be knocking off the whole back of the house so the kitchen can be done properly - it's a very dodgy conservatory type build atm. But that would also involve kicking the tenant out of the granny flat for some months. And lots of money. So that's the end of the 10-year plan. We're on about year 3, having been here 5 years...

Tip for those doing lofts - Kingspan insulation is worth every penny and you can find seconds on Ebay and online. It's in neat blocks so you just slice and shove and the saving on the heating bill has been dramatic.

Happy new week all, how is everything going? We have decided to go with builder#2 and we are trying to set up a meeting with him for later this week to confirm what he is including in his quote. I posted another post re things to ask him but if anyone here has any advice then please let me know!

I think he will be a bit more £ than builder#1 but DH knows him (went to school with him), he is local, trustworthy, we know where he lives, he built SIL's extension, he has just finished an extension round the corner from us and got a great reference (apart from his joiner's 'finishing touches') and he also thinks he can save us some VAT as some of his guys aren't VAT registered (is that dodgy though?). He also has kids so understands trying to keep disruption to a minimum. I hope

Hi Sleeves! i would reccomend you obtain a full specification for your build and also ask him to list monetary allowances he has made for things like taps/sinks/basins/internal doors etc...if you want a higher spec (which costs more)or want to supply the items you will need to know this in order to agree an appropriate price allowance.

Some tradesmen are not VAT registered...not dodgy. it just means that that tradesman does not have the requisite annual turnover to warrant VAT registration.

Ask him to provide a copy of the form of contract he usually uses so you can take time to read it through and you will be able to consider what terms you want to change.

Also ask him how and when he expects to be paid - I would recommend you agree staged payments. This is where agreed sums are paid after the completion of particular set stages,...usually related to inspections by building control. the sums should reflect the work done to date. This is better than a equal installments every e.g 4 weeks because you pay for the work that has been done (so your cash is more protected) and it also ensures the builder that very soon after he has reached key stage he wil receive the right level of funding to meet his layout.

Also agree a fair retention of between 5%-10%. this should be payable upon rectification of any agreed snagging items after the expiry of a defects liability period (eg 6 months after issue of completion certificate).

(If your build is a few months off yet, it may be a good idea build a contingency into your finances to allow for the effect of a VAT increase which may be likely in the event of a fourth labour administration.)

let us know how you get on...

Hello all

More questions from me, sorry...

The architect recommended someone to do the party wall and structural engineering. The structural engineering quote seemed OK and so we are having him but the party wall stuff was mindblowing and like I said earlier I'm sure all you need is a letter.

Anyway when we said yes to structural he came back and said can we let him know who is doing the party wall surveying as he will probably need to talk to them and be careful there are a lot of cowboys around

Do you reckon he's trying to put the wind up us so we choose him? We're not even going to bother with having a survey done on the party wall we're just going to get agreement...

I mean the structual hourly rate is about £110 and the party wall hourly rate is £180! But the strucutal stuff is to make sure the house doesn;t fall down so slightly more important I'd have thought

Anyhoo i think we're just going to keep quiet and if he asks when he's hear just say we're doing it ourselves and not engage in discussion about it? It has made me feel like I'm doing at all wrong and cutting corners, when in fact I'm sure we're doing the right thing and should save us ££££...

Yikes. I would be very wary re party wall surveyor charging that much per hour - there are some (not cowboys, just pricey) who do, and others who charge a flat rate. The one we have used this time around charged £50 for doing the letter (which you can do yourselves anyway, if you know the neighbours/aren't worried they're going to want surveys) and only charges more if he's needed for surveys. Which, sadly, he often is.

When we were selling up and needed a party wall surveyor we were recommended one (admittedly very tough and very good, which was what we needed in that particular situation) who charged that much per hour. He was deemed to be one of the most expensive around (London). So I'm sure, if you need one, you can find one for a lot less!

Hope you do'nt, though

btw, we're back from a week away and I popped in to check on progress...we're having the downstairs loo knocked through to back wall (currently a cupboard between it and the wall), to make room for a coat hanging space. Its all done bar the window

Nothing else happening on the extension though, builders are filling in time by completing a loft job, and we're waiting waiting waiting on the party wall award...the latest on that being, the Surveyor said he'd had enough and was going to grant it subject to a condition of survey done for our neighbour on the 20th. If she lets him in (unlikely). Otherwise, it goes ahead anyway

Though she could, in theory, appeal against it...very expensive process if she does, and no solicitor would take it on as the Award is not dodgy or illegal

Talk about stress.

Yes we're just going to do the letter and not bother with the survey. We'll stick to our guns.

Now I'm worried he's pricey for the structual as well - any ideas on that hourly rate? i did ring one other one who had quoted as part of doing the planning permission (when we were looking initially) but they said they weren't interested in doing the structural on a standalone basis Mind you this bloke has been recommended by architect and architect is good and seems sensible to choose someone he knows he can work with... I just can't be arsed as well getting a trillion quotes in all over again. It's going to be about £1500 which seems a reasonable price to make sure the house won't fall down? We are having a lot of external walls out...

God elibean that really does sound like a nightmare. We are lucky that our neighbours are going to extend at the same time so no issues there - if they say we can't then we will say they can't! Also why we're not getting a survey - as both sides are being done if there is any damage later it'll be hard to say which sides works caused it anyway, and it'd be up to the builders anyway to sort it out I'd have thought. They have insurance for that stuff don't they.

we've got planning permission for a 2 storey side extension that we're hoping to do this year, It'll almost double the size of our house! Our best quote was for 27k, and that included replacing the side fence as our neighbour was beeng bloody minded about fence maintainence. She hasn't touched the damn thing in the 6.5 years we've been here!!!!

Anyhow, it'll be a diner/study/ storage & loo downstairs, and HUGE bedroom and en suite upstairs. Re architects, we used my uncle who's an architect in london, and he only charged us 250 rather than 1.5k.

We live near Birmingham. Are any of you moving gas/elec meters? How extortionate?

27K?

WHY are our quotes all so HUGE?

Sigh ... more than 2 weeks since the builder recommended by the kitchen guy came to quote and not a word from him. Kitchen designer said he would remind him on Friday as he works almost exclusively for them and I left a message for him yesterday, still not a word! Not a good start to our working relationship, I think.

I think ours is so low cos we're just having an external box and barely any walls inside, but we have to have a new manhole dug and boxes moved......... still the highest quote we had so far was for 32k...... now starting to wonder if they're all a bunch of cowboys!

ImSoNotTelling our quotes are huge too. I'm wailing with you

lovejules OMG 27k??????!!!!! How did you manage to get that quote! We are also getting a 2 storey side extension and our best quote has been £62.5k! How many sq meters are you getting? I am quite but well done you on getting such a great price.

ISNT we ae paying our structural engineer a fixed fee of £535 exc VAT. I found him via a friend who used him, as our architect originally referred us to a SE who charged £850 exc VAT plus expenses and £55 an hour for any further work needing done. Plus the architect said the £850 SE was about a third cheaper than the average one! He said the £535 guy has a great rate and seemed fine (he is a self employed SE) so if I were you I'd try to look around for some more quotes. I have no idea about party wall stuff so can't really help out there.

elibean hope you get all your party wall stuff sorted, do you want us all to go and beat up your neighbour? LOL, hopefully she won't try to appeal anything and you will be able to push on ahead with everything.

Thanks for things to think about re the builder, I'm going to write a big list and go through it with him. Not sure when we are meeting yet as he needs to come with the joiner too. Incidentally, do you think I should say to the joiner that I want him to do a good job on his finishing touches as someone said they aren't that good? Or should I say that to the builder so he can ensure his joiner does a decent job this time? I don't really want to have to say it to the joiner myself! He was excellent on the main building work stuff though so think he will be fine, not quite sure what 'not great finishing touches' meant anyway when our neighbour said that.

I just rang a couple of other local structural engineers and their hourly rates are about the same, and off the top of their heads they both gave me very rough guesses that were much more.

I think it's just north london prices

sleeves if I were you I would mention it to the builder. no point putting teh joiners back up before he's even started! might be worth trying to find out more from the neighbour what they meant - they may have ludicrously high standards or have had a ruck with him or anything...

ISNT that's rubbish you are getting such high quotes, no doubt because you are in London though. I'm in Scotland so probably one of the cheaper areas. Re the joiner, the woman I spoke to said he was great when buiding the actual house but that his skirtings etc weren't so good. I did think her standards may be sky high too but I might chap her door again and ask what she meant specifically. I don't know if she brought any issues up with the joiner either.

Do you think I should get more references? We have 2 for this builder, one being SIL and also DH knows someone in the trade who said this builder has a great reputation, is that enough?

I think that sounds like enough references TBH, and he sounds v good. Ask your neighbour as well if they got sorted to her satisfaction in the end?

It's all really nail-biting stuff isn't it. I suppose none of us can relax until its all done and dusted.

this london prices thing is crap actually. I mean we have already bought the land (ie the house) which is the expensive bit due to land being at a premium blah.

But how can the materials labour hourly rates etc etc be, what, double? just because we are in london. Is ridicuous. Is obviusly not the true cost but related to the inflated house prices. I mean what we're spending to extend this house you could buy a house in another part of the country - but i suppose that they can charge a bit less than the value it will put on.

So they;re not charging in line with actual costs but in ine with ridicuous house prices.