bedroom extension mid terrace

[mattj74]

Hi,
We're currently in 3 bedroom mid terrace house. The 3rd bedroom is basically a box room so use it as a study/computer room. We'd love to have a functioning bedroom that we could fit an actual double bed into but being in a mid terrace house I think our options are limited.

At the back of the house on the ground floor is open plan kitchen on one side and dining room on the other. I suppose a double storey extension on the back is possible but would be very expensive and also not sure what footing we have especially with light considerations for the neighbours.

I'm not sure how strange it would be to tack a bedroom and possibly cloakroom on the back of the house in a single storey extension? Or maybe opening up the back wall to extend the kitchen into the single storey extension on one side (kitchen and dining area) and make the other side bedroom. I'm just thinking off the top of my head and not sure if that would look strange or would not be practical. Has anyone built something to meet a similar requirement? I would have thought extending in this way would be a much cheaper £15-25K instead of the nearly £100K additional to buy a new 4 bedroom house!

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Blagard]

Matt,

Do some sketches of your present floor arrangement with room dimensions. Ground and First floor complete. Then post them on the forum so people here can pass on ideas.

You are going to get a shock when you get things priced up and take into account all the costs of such works.

 

[DevilDamo]

As a general rule of thumb, you can get a very basic idea of costs when using £1,000 per sq.m so an extension of 24 sq.m would cost you approx. £24,000.

 

[Blagard]

As a general rule of thumb, you can get a very basic idea of costs when using £1,000 per sq.m so an extension of 24 sq.m would cost you approx. £24,000.

I appreciate the "very basic" qualification but still would ask:
Is this the ballpark for building costs only for the shell or do you need to factor in Fees on top? - I would expect fitting out (Bathrooms and Kitchens) to be added on top, together with other alterations to existing

I'm all in favour of ballpark budgets so long as you know roughly what they allow for.

 

[DevilDamo]

That is "basic" build cost approximation, plus fixtures/fittings and professional fee's. Obviously clients are to obtain professional quotations from two/three different companies but for those people who are proposing to carry out simple extensions (i.e. not involving basements/terracing, etc...), then you can use that basic calculation.

 

[mattj74]

Untitled

• mattj74
• 19 Feb 2010
• 1

Hi,
Attached is a drawing of current house layout. Excuse my feeble artistry skills and also the $ signs (pre-viewing some scanning software!).
Neighbour's fences are on either side of our garden and neighbour to right has a single storey extension. I guess most likely place for ours is on the back.
We'd love to have extra bedroom but not sure how weird it'd be to have it right behind kitchen and dining room. Double storey extension would probably do the trick by putting it upstairs but that'd be megabucks and not sure about neighbour's light issues.

I think it's 3.5 meters deep and 6 meters wide roughly so probably about 21 meters squared so roughly £21K as a guideline? I thought about a conservatory which would probably be cheaper but it's north-east facing and I've heard they get very cold in winter or else you use lots of gas/electricity to heat it.

Thanks very much,
Matt

 

[DevilDamo]

Well... there is scope to extend out the back, whether it be single or double storey is another question. You're right in as much as the neighbours would loose light if you were to erect a two-storey extension and some LA's use the 45 degree rule where the maximum depth of a two storey extension is goverened by the centre line of a neighbours window (to a habitable room) to prevent loss of daylight.

To get professional guidance and advice, it may be worth speaking to your local planning authority for their comments. You'd be building right on the boundary line too so you would have to look at serving a party wall notice, which a surveyor/building control officer can advise further. It's a shame your property wasn't extended the same time as the neighbours. Were you served with a party wall notice when the neighbours carried out their extension or was it already there when you moved in?

 

[mattj74]

The extension was there when we moved in in 2003. I would have thought the precedent is set for a single storey as the neighbour already has one and we'd have pretty much exactly the same lean-to extension.

I measured the area again and the back extension would roughly be 5 meters by 3 meters so about 15 meters squared.

The wife suggested an option of extending back only just over half the width of the house and having something like 3 meters deep by 3 meters wide. Apparently someone in the neighbourhood has something like this. It would mean we'd retain some patio space and the kitchen window would look directly out to the garden. I suppose would could save roughly £6K as well. But I'm not sure how worth it that'd be. Other option is to open up the kitchen into the extension area and making it a kitchen/dining area on left side of the house but that would be a fair bit more expense I guess.

I'm not really familiar with the party wall notice. The extension would go right up to neighbour's extension on right and up to fence on left (probably remove fence?) Is it because the outside wall of the extension would be running up against the neighbour's properties?

Thanks,
Matt