single story extension to bungalow

[Philipj.cosson]

Hi,

I am thinking of buying a 1922 3 bed bungalow It has hardly been touched for 40 years. It still has round pin sockets in some rooms.

It is in a plot of 902 sqm in the centre of a small highly desirable town and is on the market for 249,000. The bungalow is 110m sqm. The bungalow is 2.5m away from the roadside boundary of the plot, and 2.5m away from the neighbours boundary to the north. The majority of the free plot is to the west of the bungalow, with a drive to the south of the bungalow running the length of the plot (5 cars could park nose to tail) to a garage.

The external walls are reputedly single concrete block with internal battening to make them up to 9 inch. the roof is a pyramid (what do you call that?) of small brown tiles of a lowish height (about 190 headroom maximum), with a central chimney.

We want to build a large flatroof extension to the northwest corner, (approx 1 meter from boundary) to house a new kitchen/dining area and a utility. The existing lounge would convert into a master bedroom and we would build a new family bathroom where the exiting kitchen is. the exisiting bathroom would become a showeroom.

Questions:

1) what is the maximum permitted development extention sizes? I have seen quoted 30sqm, 50sqm and 15% of exiting floor area.

1a) Is it worth compromising on size to remain permitted development? what size could I get away with if I sought planning permission?

2) what is the most cost effective way of building a large single story extention onto your house? do you get a single contractor, or get someone to do the groundwork and then a bricky to build the extention, and a roofer to put on the roof...

3) is an architect/quantity surveyor a waste of money on a project like this, or do they pay for their fees with smart decisions and knowhow?

4) are there any problems with a flat roof on a 7.5m x 4m extension?

5) we are probably going to have =A365,000 maximum budget for everything, including fixtures and fittings - is this reasonable? (anyone had a similar extension done before?)

6) do the single brick walls to the existing house pose a probem when reselling at about =A3350,000

7) would we be better off with a demolision and erection of kit house? (not favoured, as a) we would have no where to live for a while and b) it would involve the planners, and the rest of the avenue is similar detached bungalows on one side and semis on the other)

I hope I haven't asked too many questions!

TIA

Philip

[Phil L]

902m2? - this is quite possibly a gold mine.

A pitched roof

You get a single contractor and he does all the work or arranged subcontractors and pays them out oif the money he harges you, thius is more cost effective because: A) He knows more suitable tradesmen B) He gets the jobs done more cheaply than you can

Total waste of money, don't bother

Yes, it will definately leak in within 15 years and you'd be lucky to get plans passed in the first place.

This is more than ample, building an extension is around £700 per m2 external size, so yours would be 8m X 4.5...expect to pay around £30k for building work

I thought they were concrete block? in any case, yes, this is why you are getting it for a song now, considering it's got a full size football pitch out back!

Why not demolish and erect 3 detached bungalows? - you could sell two and live in the other...just getting planning permission to do the above would double the price of the existing property

[Peter Crosland]

Flat roofs are almost always bad news. Even though they cost more a proper pitched roof will be much more durable and attractive to byers.

Details here

1a) Is it worth compromising on size to remain permitted development?

Go and talk to your local planners. They don't bite and if approached properly can be very helpful.

I will leave others to comment.

I will leave others to comment.

I will leave others to comment.

I will leave others to comment.

Peter Crosland

[Harry Bloomfield]

Phil L pretended :

It is only 30x30 metres.

[John Rumm]

A "hipped roof" (as opposed to a gable end one).

The small tiles are probably about three or four times longer than the bit you can see sticking out!

IIRC it is a percentage of the building size, and possibly should no use more than a certain percentage of the free land... however I can't remember the numbers.

The obvious answer is to DIY if you can.

After that (assuming you are not doing large amounts of work yourself, you are probably better off with a single prime contractor unless you have access to a pool of trusted people)

Again if you can DIY then that will work out much cheaper.

No more so than any other flat roof. I.e. avoid them if you can, however if done well then up to 25 years life is possible.

I would anticipate that is adequate.

In what context. If they are outside walls, then it is unlikely ot be a problem if there is enough insulation.

Only if that is what you really want to live in.

[Philipj.cosson]

Thanks for the answers...

25mx37m - we thought that as well, but not sure I'm looking forward to all the gardening!

I thought that the single story did not need plans passed if we stay within permitted develompment?

Hmm... I wonder if my wifes plans for aga's and real oak block flooring will be compromised with a =A335,000 budget!

sorry, they are - and there is no insulation in the batten space...

Where do we live in the interval? good idea to apply for planning permission though - we expect to live in house between 5-7 years before moving on - how long does PP last? can you apply for pp twice for the same bit of land - i.e. hols two alternative schemes in readiness?

[Philipj.cosson]

Thanks for the answer...

If we put a pitched roof on, it won't join properly to the existing roof. It is one of those roofs that starts out very shallow for about

2m than rises steeper to a point. We would end up with a small gable agaist the roofline facing east. Possible damp problems where this meets the existing guttering?

I could move the extention more to the middle of the plot, so that the pitch would match - but that would give me an area of garden agaist my neigbours boundary that woud be in the shadow of the extension and reduce my own garden size...

philip

[Philipj.cosson]

cheers - this will aid communications! it has a shallow slope to start with then a steeper slope to the apex. does this have a special name as well?

I do have access to some - but no one who would do the groundwork. is it cost effective to hire a digger and do this yourself?

Cheers

Philip

[Philipj.cosson]

[Philipj.cosson]

Have been looking at

1) Rubber roof Glass fibre roof know of cost comparisons?

Philip

[Phil L]

Going down this route is full of pitfalls..unless you have unlimited time and extra money to throw at it you'd be better getting a contractor in to do the whole thing....if you 'do it yourself', IE organise groundworks, concrete, bricklayers, roofers, plasterers etc, it generally goes along these lines:

Groundowrkers excavate as per plan, you drop in concrete and get it passed by BCO, you ring brickies to tell them it's ready and they say they'll be 3 weeks yet because they are stuck on another job. nothing at all happens for 3 weeks. Brickies come and start work and the roofer calls to ask why you've not phoned him, you tell him about the brickies and he starts another big job in the interim, when the brickies have finished the roofer can't leave his job and you have to wait 4 weeks. Nothing happens for a month. The plasterers have got sick of waiting and you have to try and find someone else. You find a leak on the roof and the roofer says he'll be back in 6-8 weeks, meanwhile the newly plastered ceilings are falling down....etc, etc, etc, etc.

one contractor takes responsibility for all of this and a lot more besides, you are dealing with one person and not chasing umpteen people around trying to coax them into doing what needs doing.

You can hire a man and digger in most places now, take a look in yellow pages under 'excavation', we pay about £150 - £200 per day

[Phil L]

You get plans drawn up and tell him that you want the new roof to match the existing one, it's all do-able.

'reduce your garden size' - you've got 900m2 to play in, is this not enough?

[Owain]

In a static caravan on site - you can usually pick them up for under a thousand quid, and planners will usually allow one for up to two years as a temporary structure during site works.

I think there's a time limit on 'outline' planning permission (which would be for eg 'demolish existing bungalow and build three bungalows') but no time limit for full PP providing construction has started.

I think so. You can apply for outline PP even if you don't own the land.

Do any of your neighbours have similarly sized gardens?

Owain

[John Rumm]

I am sure it does - but I don't know what it is...

Depends on how much of the whole thing you want to get involved in. You could for example do the groundwork and then hand over to a main contractor to finish the job - that would probaby avoid most of the situations that Phil L described and still save some money.

If you are going to project manage each stage, then you need to either have a number of fallback plans to cope with things not going to schedule, or the ability to do any of the jobs yourself. If I were doing what you describe, then I would probably only sub contract the brickwork, and do the rest myself.

[Philipj.cosson]

Other bungalows on the odd side of the avenue have similar plot sizes, yes. but all the other bungalows have had money spent on them in the recent past and are priced over =A3320,000 - a bit expensive for a plot...

I used this

to see if it was more cost effective to knock down and build areplacement bungalow to modern standards and room layout. It quotes =A3120,000 to rebuild, and says add 25% if you want 'luxury' finishes.

As this does not cover the cost of living somewhere while the demolish build happens (?6 months) - it would be more cost effective to try and renovate.

Philip

Owa> >>Why not demolish and erect 3 detached bungalows?

[Owain]

My point is that if you can buy a bit of the back end of their garden(s), that land may be useless without access, and they probably don't want to demolish their lovely houses. But if you were demolishing yours anyway to build 3 new, that might give *you* access to the otherwise unusable land and you could build 4 or 5.

You might also be allowed to build a bungalow near the road and 2-storey at the rear, allowing you to build maybe 4 2-bed semi-det houses on the back plot.

Owain

[Philipj.cosson]

Now been told by a couple of builders that they won't put a flat roof on! Has anyone had a flat roof single story extension done recently?

Philip

[Nick H]

What so many people fail to realise is that building is not a nice clea

logical progression of trades, in between all the major works are multitude of awkward "in between" jobs that no-one really wants to do You simply cant rely on your subcontractors to get ALL the detail sorted out correctly, things will get missed and they'll come back t bite you on the a**e. Thats what you pay a GOOD builder to do, an therein lies the problem, finding a good builder

-- Nick H

[Philipj.cosson]

just realised this is 70m CUBED not square. A definite case of more is less! this has scuppered my plans somewhat :-(

Philip

[Phil L]

Not really, the last two extensions I've done had these dimensions

Ex one:

4m X 3m X 3m, equalling 36m3, but this was only the small section, the other section was 6mX3mX3m, and this total is 54m3...added together they make 90m3..they were all one extension, but went at right angles to each other...no problems at all with planning.

ex two:

the floor area is approx 43m2, and it's 2.5m high, do the maths yourself and get your plans drawn up....this second one has almost doubled the existing floor area of the house (45m2) so don't believe everything you read on the internet.