Two story extension and renovation - DIY

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Hi Everyone,

We bought a 1930's semi in July 18 which had been in the hands of its previous owners for over 50 years, both aged 97. We bought with the intention to extend and fully rennovate.

We finally have planning and building regs approval after about 18 months of messing around between architect, council and engineers. It seemed straightforward but various issues caused delays.

I currently intend on doing the majority of the work myself with exception to plastering and electrics and have taken a lot of inspiration from others here who have done the same.

We are going to attempt to build a two story extension comprising Kitchen, Utility and WC on ground floor. We will need to demolish our existing kitchen and bathroom and move our staircase. First floor will be a bathroom, bedroom and dressing room (which will be plumbed encase we want to convert to en-suite in future)

The rest of the existing house requires full renovation. Windows/Doors, rewiring, skimming, insulation, heating and full decoration etc so its going to be a major challenge.

The current plan is to build the extension shell first, we plan on living here as much as we possibly can until we get to a point where it just isn't possible. We both have full time jobs and a 3 year old son. Maybe i'll regret this :)

Existing:

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Approved Plans:
There is a change to create access to garage from utility.
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Some before pictures from the estate agent, it looks much better in the photos...they don't show the various leaking windows, leaking roof and shower which rains into the kitchen. There is a new surprise every week.

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Whilst waiting on planning building regs I started to clear the site before the winter, thinking id get the regs before i was done and i could keep on going.

Before:

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I got rid of the shed and started to lift all the slabs:

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Under the shed:

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We had various drainage issues and now we know why!

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Quick temporary repair has seen us through the winter:

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Watching with interest as we are also about to start a similar project
 
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Back to lifting slabs, and there are slabs underneath :(


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a few trips to the dump, i picked up a small camping trailer which has saved a few quid.

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Not your typical slab base under there...

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luckily i had some help...

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but he got bored and left me to it.....This took quite a bit of digging. I was taking everything to the dump which slowed me down, but no skips yet.

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I stopped here for the winter whilst i waiting for the building warrant to come through
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Today i started marking the foundations, the weather is terrible and the rain comes every half hour but i hope to start digging this weekend.

Our walls will be 15cm from the boundary on the ground floor so we will be digging exactly on the boundary at both sides, ill come in a little more to be safe.

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If possible store that hardcore on site, you'll probably be paying to get some delivered at some point.
 
Keep the hardcore you an put it back in the oversite.
 
I’ve decided to get a man with a digger in to dig out the trenches. The weather is terrible and I’ll be emptying them every day if I hand dig. The quicker the concrete goes in the better.

it’ll be a just over a week before he can do it.

In the mean time I’ve done some temporary drainage so we can pull the old clay stuff out whilst digging and we can move the temporary out of the way whilst the machine is in.

Next up is emptying and demolishing the back of the garage.

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I’ve now demolished the back of the garage which was single skin brick so easy enough.

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I got a digger and operator in for two days to get the trenches dug out, he done the bulk of the work and I went round tidying up. Originally I was going to do this by hand but we wanted to get moving quickly and get the concrete in before I had to go in some work trips. I now think it was 100% worth the £500 which included dumping the spoil in the front garden so it’s easy for a grab to come and take away.

We found a very shallow water pipe at the start of the dig, very lucky. Only downside is it turns out our house is the only one in the street with a shared connection. I wanted to replace the lead but can’t force our neighbours to do that. We are currently negotiating a new connection.


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Today we poured the concrete, now I can relax and go in work trips without worrying about trenches collapsing and being flooded.

It’s probably going to be the end of the month before I start laying the blocks up to dpc

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I will be watching this with interest! Looking to do a single storey this year.... Very jealous of your "shallow" foundations as I'm on clay !
 
Great work bro!
Silly question, on the drainage I take it you are supposed to have access boss rodding eyes or inspection chamber or is that all temp? Only in case something blocks?
G
 
Great work bro!
Silly question, on the drainage I take it you are supposed to have access boss rodding eyes or inspection chamber or is that all temp? Only in case something blocks?
G

yeah there will be a chamber on the left and a rodding eye on the right....all on the outside of the building. Current setup is just to keep the house running.
 
Hi Everyone,

Made a fair bit of progress but travelled quite a bit with work and then lock down came and materials became hard to source.

I am now slowly getting the blocks laid up to first floor level, not quite there yet and block work is not the tidiest but as it is being rendered and I have never laid brick before I am quite happy.

First I took a long time setting out, confidence was low and it was pretty critical, I messed around for days


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Finally decided to get going...

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There was a bump in the foundation which i wanted to get levelled out so used some concrete bricks to give me more courses to adjust

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