Detailed Plans

Here is the plan for the ground floor (minus the kitchen):
The innocuous little diamond in the middle of the large room is actually a pillar. This holds up the 3 beams directly and 2 indirectly - hence the comment in the Builder post about Geoff's insurance - that pillar holds up the house.... once the existing external walls are down the existing house is being supported by props!

The upstairs is more conventional. We have designed the dressing room so that it can be converted to a fourth bedroom easily - mainly in case we want to sell it.

The main extravagance upstairs is the huuuuge bath! Depending on how the budget is going when we get to the bathroom and en-suite, they will either be really nice, or pretty basic - we'll just have to wait and see.

The Kitchen is the big expense downstairs. All being well it will look like this:


This was mocked up using the Alno kitchen planner although it's not an Alno kitchen.

Finding a Builder

Builders

oo er. What a palaver. I think we spoke to 12-15 builders in the end. Some didn't return calls, some took plans and never returned - note here - get plenty of copies!!!!

We got a range of quotes from mid forties to one hundred and twenty thousand. The standard figure you see quoted is about £1000/m2 which means £2000/m2 (ground floor area) if you go for a 2 storey extension. This is a good budgeting figure, but you should be able to beat it with a small family builder.

We thought we had a builder, who changed his mind, then changed it again, then finally just didn't turn up for a meeting.... The moral here is definitely to keep in touch with your builder regularly even before you have contracted.

After that let down we got a load more quotes and finally settled on a local builder - Geoff Brookfield (http://www.brookfieldbuilders.co.uk/general.htm). So far Geoff has been on time, answered the phone and also been very accommodating with my bank's messing about and delays. Fingers crossed these bode well for his performance on the job!

To be honest, choosing the builder has been the most frightening aspect of the job so far. Entrusting the safety of our house (and next door) to a stranger based on a few chats with them and their references is pretty daunting. Needless to say we will be checking Geoff's insurance very carefully. (See the page on the detailed plans when I've done it for why this is especially important for us).

As for finding a builder, we asked for personal recommendations from friends and colleagues, used the federation of master builders website (generally the more expensive quotes came from here), and the yellow pages. We also used material suppliers as a source, including when we were considering thin-joint blockwork (Thanks to Chris Hirst at Clan).

I would suggest getting more than the recommended 3 quotes. If you are like me, you'll 'settle' on someone when you meet them, but it's important to balance their quote with a range. The cheapest is not necessarily 'dodgy' but a general rule of thumb is that material costs will not change, so the only real variables between quotes are labour and profit. Larger companies have more overheads so will usually be more expensive - but you have the 'comfort' factor, plus they should do the job faster (more labour available) and they should not have the biggest problem....

Plumbers and Sparkies!!!! Every small builder struggles to rally plumbers and sparkies reliably. Check your builder either employees his own (or does that work himself) - this is unlikely with 3-man-band builders as they don't have enough work to keep trades fully employed. If they do it themselves - make sure they are qualified and certified properly. If they have a regular team they bring together on jobs, that's probably less of a risk.

So... my advice would be to make sure the builder has the responsibility - ensure you contract the builder to manage the trades and that he is financially responsible for any delays they introduce. He may be OK with using your recommended tradesmen (if you have them) but you may have to accept his tradesmen. I would say this is worth it to avoid the hassle with organising things. We have taken this as a general principle - the builder has the whole job. We'll tell him if we want to use particular suppliers (eg. Kitchen) and we'll pay them, but it's up to Geoff to be ready for them and organise them all. If your builder won't do that, you'll end up project managing things - get a drop in the price, and be prepared to take a lot of time off work or at least be prepared for a huge phone bill and a lot of extra stress.....

I'll document how it goes with Geoff. Hopefully it will be basically positive (we're bound to fall out somewhere!) but if not, at least you'll know why and how - so you can avoid any mistakes we might make....

Building Regs

Once we had planning permission, the next step was to gain building regs. We decided not to continue with the architects for this work as we wanted a very detailed set of drawings to enable the builder to work without much input from us. We found a freelance architectural technician to draw the plans for us.

He drew the plans and worked with the structural engineer to get the beam calcs done. We ended up needing 6 beams and a pillar in the middle of the big room to keep beam sizes down and allow us to open up the stairs. The net effect being we need a party wall agreement with our attached neighbours. (see the direct government website for info on this)

Luckily, despite them objecting to the plans, they have been reasonable in our dealings on the party wall and our structral engineer has met with them to explain everything - hopefully we'll get their agreement this week!

We gained building regs relatively quickly once the structural calcs were submitted - all we need now is the money from the bank and we're off.

Planning Recommendations

How well do you get on with your neighbours? How would you feel if you fell out with them?

We didn't really know our neighbours and we made a mistake not talking to them as soon as we started thinking about an extension. It probably wouldn't have made any real difference as we wanted a big extension on two floors and I suspect they would only have been happy with a single storey, but it still might have made the process easier.

The first time we submitted plans, we told them after we had submitted so they knew to expect the letter from the council. One neighbour objected but the other did not and said nothing - so we assumed they were ok. In hindsight - this was obviously the wrong time but we were just caught up in the design process.

The second time we showed them the plans just prior to submission. The neighbour who objected came round, measured up and pronounced he was OK - then promptly objected anyway..... the other neighbour also objected!! Shows you never can tell or assume anything.

Basically, tell your neighbours all the way through but expect them to object anyway. Talk to the planning officer - or get your architect to talk to them, so there are no technical reasons for a rejection - it can be very expensive redesigning your plans.

Finally, planning can only be rejected on technical issues - things like reduction in their property values has no bearing on the decision - although if you share a party wall (as we do) best not to upset them too much...

The Planning Process

We began the process of having our extension designed in January 2006. We engaged Cork Toft Partnership, a nearby architects practice and they began by measuring the house and producing a CAD drawing of the house as it is now.

Once the initial measurements had been made, the next step was to work up some options for the extension. Our original thought had been to include a full length garage to enable pass-through of vehicles, but it became clear that we would get no ground floor living space if we did this.

The architect produced a revised plan with a 2 storey extension the full length of the main house, initially with a step part way along to accommodate a garage at the front of the house and living space behind it.


At this point, we gave up on the garage and decided to go for a full size extension on both floors. The next design reflected this by moving the hall, and introducing 2 new reception rooms, but leaving the existing lounge and kitchen relatively unchanged. The first floor had a large dormer on the front to soften the impact, but extended back the length of the main house, providing 1 new double bed with en-suite and dresser, a replacement double bed with en-suite and adding an en-suite to one of the other beds - so 4 beds, 3 with en-suite and an option to en-suite the fourth.


A couple of iterations later (D) and the extension had grown yet again, bit downstairs was still a collection of individual rooms.


We submitted these plans but they were rejected in part because a neighbour engaged a surveyour to write an objection letter, but primarily because it was basically too big on the first floor.

The extension was redesigned to remove the dormer and cut the first floor back in line with the existing gable end wall. By now we were into June and a few thousand pounds worse off. It was at this point we fell out with the architect slightly as we felt he should have forseen some of the specific objections raised (or at least raised the possibility) and we also felt there hadn't been enough designing by them - much of the design was what we drew for them and they put into CAD. In hindsight, this may be a bit unfair, but when you get knocked back at planning, it is easy to look for a culprit!

The revisions were done in close conjunction with the planning officer (something we and the architect should have done from the very beginning) and we soon reached an external layout which he implied would be acceptable. It was this revision (F) that introduced the open plan layout which excited us so much. We re-submitted the plans in July 2006 and watched the council planning website with anticipation. On the 6th September we finally received permission !!!! As it turns out, that was the easy bit...

Front and Side Elevations:
Rear Elevation:
Internal Layout:

Introduction

I intend to use this blog to document the forthcoming extension of our house - warts and all. Partly as a way to remember what we are going through and partly so other people considering major works will know what to really expect.

Paul