Moving into a new house, but extending it first

[Matt1986]

Hi guys, first post in the forum, nice to meet you all.

Basically, myself and my partner +1 child currently live in a 3 bed semi, last year I sadly lost my grandmother, but I inherited her house, and a sizeable inheritance sum with it.

After time has passed, we've been able to look at our housing situation with fresh eyes, and have decided we'd quite like to move into her old property, and sell our current.

My late grandmother's property is in a very sought after location, with a couple of very good schools very close by. However, it's only a 2 bed property (which is fine for now, but looking forward we would like another child), and it's a 1930s property with solid walls, and quite poor insulation by today's standard. It's also got very old electrics throughout, with no safety trip installed. It does however have plenty of off street parking, and a huge rear garden, about 110ft from the back of the house to the rear perimeter fence infact.

Our plan would be to extend the rear of the property with a double storey 3m extension using permitted development, and changing the layout to the rear upstairs adding a 3rd bedroom. Downstairs there's already been an extension rearwards in the mid 80s, but only around 2.5m, and it hasn't been done to the best standard, so ideally it would need taking back to the original house and starting again. We'd also like to take the opportunity to modernise the house, creating an en-suite bathroom in the front master bedroom which is huge, so could afford the room, completely re-plaster, and re-wire the whole house, add underfloor heating downstairs, and also external solid wall insulation if possible, rendering it all in to tie in with the new extension.

Budget wise, we have about £130k available, possibly more with the profit of the sale of our current house. I have no idea at this point if our plans make this budget realistic, or not. If so, we may have to scale our plans accordingly. 130k on top of the houses value would probably exceed the ceiling price of this type of house in the area by 10-20k, but as the house is mortgage free, and it's more about creating our home than thinking about financial returns, this is not of massive concern to me.

It's also worth noting that the property would be vacant throughout the extension, as we would sell our house after the move, something I believe would be quite handy during work of this magnitude.

My main question is this, having never extended, or thought of extending before, where do I start? I know in my head what I want, but I don't know if it's builders I need to contact first, or an architect to look at my ideas from a structural and practical perspective, and then put them into plans to then show builders?

Ofcourse, there would be no point spending money on these designs, only to later find out that our budget which really would top out at around £150k isn't enough for the proposed plans, so maybe it's builders I need to speak to first? I really don't know, and am asking for your advice please guys.

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Secondly, as the garden is so large, I'd quite like to have a brick built outbuilding to accommodate a hobby of mine. The proposed building would have a footprint of around 60ft x 10ft, and the roof would need to be no higher than 2m. It would go along the dividing wall of the garden, but it would be separate from the main building.

Would such a building need planning permission? If my grasp of PD is correct, I think it would be okay, as it would still not take up more than 50% of the area around the original property (including the extension) and even though it would be close to a boundary, the roof height would not be more than 2m?

The second question is purely speculative at this point, it would entirely depend on budget of the main extension.

Thanks in advance.

Matt.

 

[^woody^]

Find an architectural technician or suchlike to advise you.

 

[garyo]

Have you looked at the criteria for 2-storey PD? It's pretty tight depending on your boundary positions. Is the house detached or semi?

 

[Matt1986]

Thanks for the replies guys. House is a semi detached.

I’ve looked into the PD restrictions and I’m fairly sure what I propose should fall into it.

Plus others around (although not the neighbour joined) with identical layouts have done the same extension. I could do with asking if they done it within PD or had planning permission.

 

[^woody^]

The issue is not whether it's PD or not or what planning permissions are required.

If you want an extension then you get something designed to your needs, to have the rooms you want in suitable layouts. That's the first step.

Then you translate this to what can be done relative to planning, building and other regulations and restrictions that may or may not apply. That's the second step.

 

[Notch7]

You need to get a handle on how much it will cost and see if it meets your budget, then you need to see if your proposed wish list will work ont he house and will get planning consent or PD.

Bear in mind your other choice is to sell both properties and buy something that matches what you want.

To work out some costs, break what you want to do and break it down into a budget for each element.

Generally it is cheaper and more straightforward for a builder to do the shell and you arrange decorating, floor finishes etc. The more complicated you make the builders spec, the more difficult it will be for him to quote. Let a builder do plumbing and electrics -he will have guys that he uses all the time.

 

[JP_]

£130k should do that. I just had a 7m by 7m extension put on the back of my 1930s bungalow, that cost me about £60k, including a Benchmarx kitchen.
If you plan to make it your forever home, and have lots of space, consider a larger downstairs extension plus extra bedroom upstairs. You could build a nice new masterbedroom upstairs at the back with ensuite maybe, with juliet doors overlooking the big garden.

Ideally find a builder that comes recommended, but get lots of quotes - quotes for my build ranged from £40k+vat to £120k+vat. The £40k one was rejected as one of the people was drunk... but it was Friday afternoon ...

As well as electrics you might want to think about plumbing too, as well as mains water pipe - some are still lead or iron in the 1930s homes and the plumbing is probably under the floorboards and with little insulation.
In fact, you NEED to insulate all the external walls and underfloor while renovating. I've been doing this. Consider that even with renovation, the new part of the house will be much better insulated than the rest, so a nice warm lounge, kitchen and masterbedroom in the new part will be good for the long-term.

 

[JP_]

Oh, and yeah - planning only costs £172 or so, so applying full planning rather then PD makes sense if you want to get something a bit bigger, or do something outside of PD

 

[Lower]

Having been through the same process a few years ago you need to accept that your probably going to have to spend some money on plans to work out if this is viable or not.

Find an local architectural technician (they are much cheaper than architects) to do some outline plans for you and should be give you some guidance on whether it will be permited development or whether you require planning permission. A builder will then be able to put a price to those plans

Your budget sounds aedequate. We spent around £90k (excluding the kitchen units) on a 6m x 6m 2 storey extension to our 1920's house 2 years ago.

 

[Matt1986]

Again, thanks for all the replies guys.

Selling both and buying another is an option of course, but there really isn’t much round here that comes up often that we like. The location of the property in question is perfect, and then there’s the stamp duty to pay if we did move, which is money down the drain as far as I’m concerned.

New builds offer more from the house, but they come with little to no garden round here for less than 400k in my research. And I’m not a huge fan of the way new estates feel squeezed in, and over developed.

A larger extension would be something I’d consider if the budget would allow, but I suspect the house next door would object. Truth be told they’re slightly bitter as they are biting at my heels to buy the place, but I don’t want to sell it. They’ve made it clear for years to my grandparents they would pay over the odds for it, I suspect they would just sell both plots to a developer, so this does scupper their plans, I strongly suspect they’d throw any spanner they could in the works regarding planning.

Appreciate the insight from all, I think I’ll start looking for local architectural technicians and take it from there.

 

[JP_]

but I suspect the house next door would object

Who cares? They might not have a problem at all though.

I left a 6 bedroom house in a 2002 estate to go to a 1930s 2.5 bed bungalow. Best move ever.
Estates are a nightmare for parking and noise problems. My house was amazing, but the location was rubbish.

Number one rule of building an extension: build it as big as you can afford, as you will only regret it later.
Put most money into the extension, then put in cheapest carpets, flooring, kitchen, bathrooms etc. as all this can be upgraded later.

Some inspiration ... our 1930s bungalow kitchen and lounge, before and after the extension (yes, not bought a new oven yet)
The kitchen cost about £2000 (inc fitting), the floor was £500 sheet vinyl (inc. fitting).:

And renovating the old lounge to a bedroom:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tSGFt3HD2CWY7sGa9

 

[Matt1986]

Who cares? They might not have a problem at all though.

I left a 6 bedroom house in a 2002 estate to go to a 1930s 2.5 bed bungalow. Best move ever.
Estates are a nightmare for parking and noise problems. My house was amazing, but the location was rubbish.

Number one rule of building an extension: build it as big as you can afford, as you will only regret it later.
Put most money into the extension, then put in cheapest carpets, flooring, kitchen, bathrooms etc. as all this can be upgraded later.

Some inspiration ... our 1930s bungalow kitchen and lounge, before and after the extension (yes, not bought a new oven yet)
The kitchen cost about £2000 (inc fitting), the floor was £500 sheet vinyl (inc. fitting).:

View attachment 155848

And renovating the old lounge to a bedroom:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tSGFt3HD2CWY7sGa9

Very true, I have a feeling that they might if they can't get their way, but you're right, I don't know.

That's some very good advice regarding building as big as you can afford also.

I think the best thing might be to have a couple of plans drawn up and see what might work, and what fits the budget.

Nice build by the way, that's quite a turnaround. There seems to be a lot of love for the 1920s/30s built houses on this forum.

 

[Dereekoo]

On the face of it you will not be able extend using PD see the following link, Note 3 on 2 storey rear extensions
https://ecab.planningportal.co.uk/uploads/miniguides/extensions/extensions.pdf

A general rule of thumb is to allow £1200 per m2 of floor area to be built, so a 2 x 5m single storey extension would be £12000 and a 2 storey extension £24000, obviously location and spec has a bearing on this.

 

[motorbiking]

Make sure your budget second property tax. You might be able to claim it back when you sell your place, but that will depend how quickly your old house is sold.

For the solid 9" walls. If you are redoing the electrics then get the builder to take the plaster back to brick, redo the electrics and any pipework and then install insulation bonded plaster (or two part). This will make a big difference. Obviously don't bother on the external walls that will become internal as these will be "blanketed" by your extension. If for any reason you end up taking the floor up - again insulate.

1920s houses are about as bad as it gets for insulation, but its easily fixed as part of bigger projects. It should be a bit easier for the builder not having to work around you too. But you want to make sure they don't cut corners.

- pipework properly lagged
- walls insulated
- ceilings insulated etc.

If money will stretch think about cat6 networking, burglar alarm cable etc. get that in the walls while you can.