House extensions

[diy-newby]

Hi guys

After some advice regarding building an extension over a garage. Basically, we are looking to move and have seen a house which has a garage attached to the side of the house. Looks like others have extended over the garage so looks as though planning would not be a problem.

The garage is part of the house and was done at the same time the house was built. Would the foundations of the garage be the same depth/size as the house and thus would support an extension on top?

Anyone else had this sort of extension done?

The house is a 3 bed detached. Anyone offer an approx (and I know everything varies) cost to add an extension above the existing garage?

Thanks

[Palindrome]

If the other houses with these extensions are of the seame design, why not ring a couple of doorbells and ask the owners?

Otherwise, look up the rebuilding costs per square metre for your area and that will give a very rough guide for the size of extension you have in mind.

[Joe]

[Phian]

Find a good Financial Advisor. I have just taken out an interest only mortgage at a fixed rate and, although I am a little younger than you, he assured me age will not be a problem if I am still around when the term ends. The important thing from the Mortgage Company's concern is that the property is worth enough to cover what you owe them (plus a bit for a safety margin) should anything go wrong and that you can show the repayments can be met. I have heard there are equity release schemes available but have been warned off them although I didn't go into the details. In effect, what I have done is reduce the amount of the value of the house which will be left to my children, saves them paying inheritance tax - at least that is what I will tell them :-)

Phian

[Jerry L]

We had a similar extension built last year and it cost around £30k + vat. In our case, behind the garage was a single storey utility room. The garage had single brick construction and the utility room had a cavity wall. The builders had to make the second storey above the garage have a cavity wall so they ended up putting a steel beam along the length of the garage to support the innner blocks.

With the foundations in our case it was easy. The house is ten years old and several other people had done this extension first. On the first few extensions of this type on the estate building control made them dig a test hole to find out how big the foundations were. For the last couple they have assumed that as the house type is the same, the foundations are the same as the other ones on the estate, and hence no test holes have been necessary.

My advice would be to try and get the same builder as someone else has used in your area for the same type of extension. We had one estimate that was double the one we chose as he built in lots of contingency. Our builder had finished a similar extension a year before so knew what he could expect to find.

[London]

Would this not make the lower room very cold or hard to heat and the floor in the room above cold?

I am not a builder but a secound floor built on a single thickness wall does not sound great.

[Jerry L]

The ground floor was kept as a garage which is why it was kept as a single thickness wall at ground floor. If we had made it into a cavity wall we would not have been able to fit a car into the garage because of the reduced width.