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It’s a dilemma many house owners deal with eventually. A home that once offered sufficient room for your growing family suddenly appears frustratingly small. Obviously, you ask yourself whether the time is right to sell up and move somewhere bigger.
However determined you are for additional space, weighing up the costs of a house move can be off-putting. Stamp duty, legal fees, surveys and more could amount to several thousand pounds, and it’s cash you won’t see again. There are other considerations too, not least your psychological attachment to your house and the prospect of children switching schools.
So what is the very best way to extend your house – on a tight budget – without the turmoil of moving, and increase your home’s worth? A home extension is the common response. This provides flexibility of design, allowing you to include the desired amount of additional space to your house. But for many people a home extension won’t be possible for reasons of time and expense.
Instead, you could look above for inspiration, towards your unused loft space. Your loft might be appropriate for conversion depending on numerous elements. These include roofing structure and height and the functionalities of installing a staircase. A loft conversion boasts numerous benefits over an extension. It is less likely to require planning permission and won’t decrease garden size. Most of the time, it can be completed in a shorter time frame and could cost less too. And yes, it may add a tidy sum to the worth of your house.
Additions include windows set into the existing roofing slope, insulation and strengthening of the floor.
With dormer loft conversions, dormer windows are added to boost the volume of the roofing space while providing full head height. Dormers are usually added to the back, but based on planning permission, they can be built on to the side or front of your home.
Following a loft conversion, the extra space can be used as an extra bedroom or more, a study or home office, a different shower room or a baby room. Or you can think about including an en-suite or separate dressing room attached to a master bedroom.
A side dormer loft conversion is frequently chosen to raise head height for properties with a hipped roof, when accessibility to the attic is found under that hip.
These are preferred by planning departments in conservation areas. If authorised, two of these can be utilised to enhance space and add balance.
These kinds of loft conversion are basically suitable for particular homes such as Victorian homes with an addition to the back. The L-Shape Dormer offers a substantial amount of extra space.
This type of loft conversion will absolutely increase space and achieve a completely diverse feel to any other type of loft space.
A hip-to-gable loft conversion involves several of the hips being changed with a gable wall (where the roof slopes in from the side(s) in addition to the front and back). The roof is then crossed over these gables to include additional space with full headroom.
This type of loft conversion requires one or both slopes of the roof being changed with a new structure with really high sloping sides (nearly as sheer as the walls). A practically flat roof is put over the top.
This design is applied when the initial roof had little or no headroom and creates adequate volume for an extra floor. Mansard conversions typically require planning permission.
For most loft conversions, planning permission is not required. That’s simply because they typically fall under your permitted development rights. That stated, you will need to get planning permission if your plans go beyond particular limitations and conditions, such as extending or modifying the roof space beyond its existing limitations.
Obviously this varies greatly from job to job but here’s an idea. A three bed semi with Dorma which would include stairs, fire doors, all electrics, plumbing – basically everything – would approximately cost £17,500 including VAT. There is a deluxe package available which includes, decorating, carpets, lights and sockets for an extra cost determined by specification of the customer.
The answer to this question is it varies greatly from job to job, but as we only work on one project at a time, turnaround time from start to finish is generally quite quick. For example, a three bed semi with a Dorma window would take less than three weeks to complete.