Side Extension. Help Please.

[lalaandmoos]

Good Evening,
Hopefully someone will be able to help me.

I want to have a side extension built to my property. It fits within Permitted Development rights. However, my issue is my garden. I live on a hill. My garden is actually higher than my house. It is about a metre higher than ground level. It is "held in place" by a brick wall.
My question is, would I be OK to build the extension all the way out to the wall? As in the wall of the extension (thus my house) would be alongside the wall of the garden?
Ultimately I plan to level the garden, in line with the level of my actual house. But gaining a bit more space inside is more important than that right now (budget permits one OR the other).
I imagine it might look a bit strange, but would it "legally" be OK? Would digging the foundations be an issue? Would I be more likely to have flooding issues, mud coming in (if I had a window there), more insects than usual?

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• lalaandmoos
• 15 Mar 2015
• 1

Untitled

• lalaandmoos
• 15 Mar 2015
• 1

The images probably don't explain it any better. But hopefully you can understand what I mean. The first picture is kind of a birds eye view of how it would look. The second image is if you were looking face on.

Thanks.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Can't see any major issues on the face of it, obviously some retaining walls and associated tanking will add to the cost, what's the other side of the garden wall? Do you live in an area vulnerable to flooding? Got some photos?

 

[lalaandmoos]

Thanks for your reply.

I will take some pictures this week. That would've probably been more helpful to do before posting!

On the other side of the wall is soil.

I've been here 5 years and it's never flooded. I will ask my neighbor (he's been here 12 years) if he's ever known it to flood.

So, the only issue you can see is that I'd have to spend more on tanking? Would that be to the already existing wall? Or a new retaining wall would need to be built? Or do you mean the extension wall?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Pics will definitely help. I'm slightly confused by your post tbh, if your garden to the side is above your internal floor level and your neighbours garden is at the same level then what is the garden wall retaining at present?

Typically your new external wall will be the retaining wall and that wall will be tanked.

 

[lalaandmoos]

Here's 2 pictures I just took.
One to show what the wall is holding.

The other one is where I want the extension (the shed will be taken down).
Just want to extend the house by the 2 metres to the right.

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• lalaandmoos
• 16 Mar 2015
• 1

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• lalaandmoos
• 16 Mar 2015
• 1

 

[lalaandmoos]

Oh. And my neighbour's garden is at the same level as my ground level. Only my garden is up high, for some reason.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

So you want to build out to the boundary? If so then you'll need to build your external wall as a retaining wall (to retain your neighbours garden) and it will require tanking.

Or do you intend to retain a pathway between your extension and the boundary? If so then you need to build a new retaining wall on the boundary to retain your neighbours garden. Then you would just build your new external wall as a conventional wall with no tanking required.