Bobbo completely renovates and extends his tired 1950s bungalow

About a year and a half ago my wife and I bought this house:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/sold-prices/photos/property-53383614.html

The idea when we bought it was that while it is perfectly livable for the time being we would eventually do some work to turn it into a bigger house suitable for a family of 4.

The plan is to extend slightly on the ground floor and add a first floor. I will be carrying out the vast majority of the work myself and we are looking to do all building using a mix of gluelam beams and timber framing. We have found an architect that we like and want to work with who will not be involved in the project management side of things but will help us with planning and appointing an appropriate structual engineer he is shortly going to start work on the site survey and producing the initial planning drawings.

We would like the building to be as close as possible to Passive Haus certification, this will be tricky as we will be using a large amount of existing walls etc that may not be airtight.

I'm planning on keeping this thread updated with what is going on and the work that I'll be carrying out for posterity if nothing else.

Exciting times.

Cool.

Subbed.

GLW massive disruptive processes!

Excellent stuff!
Looking forward to seeing the thread and bungalow develop.
My wife and I have just done the same- completed on a late 60s bungalow coming up for a month ago and moved in a week ago. Just about habitable!
We’re already sketching plans. Gr floor extension and adding a couple of rooms in the roof.
Happy days. Good luck!
This is the wallpaper in a loo that I want to somehow preserve...

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Subscribed

That paper is lovely. Reminds me of my mum's dresses! I love a good bit of seventies pattern. I still remember the beautiful tiles my parents ripped out in the early nineties - some of it might have been sixties, but such gorgeous glazes.

Oohh.
Subbed.
Good luck.

I had this exact same wallpaper under about 5 other layers of wallpaper in my bathroom in Huddersfield. I don't know it it was water proof or if it was treated after but it was particularly tough to remove. Possibly just sacked it off and painted over it.

Any updates...?

Yes and no.

The Architect has been booked for the initial consultation and will be here a week tomorrow to measure up and discuss what Mrs Bobbo and myself would like to do with the place.

This time has given my wife and myself time to sit down and come up with a wish list of what we would like, it goes as follows:

1. Extend the front of the house out by approx 2.5 m to bring it in line with the front of other houses on the street.
   
2. Add a full first floor to the house and create 4 new bedrooms and 2 bathrooms (one en-suite).
   
3. Knock through the main living / kitchen area on the ground floor to be a large open-plan family room.
   
4. Turn the existing master bedroom into a grown-ups only sitting room (or as my grandparents would have called it drawing room).
   
5. Creation of a home office on the ground floor
   
6. ALL THE STORAGE EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   
   

There are a couple of other things but that is the main gist of what we would ideally like.

In the meantime the architect has done an initial "virtual drive by" on street view and told us what he thinks is doable for the budget and is likely to be accepted by the local planning authority. This is where the first problem has arisen; my house sits on a corner plot in an area that is a mixture of one and two story properties on the street that our house is "on" there is no problem as we are one of two bungalows; however on the other street that our house sits on there are very few two-story houses near us which could put us in a bind. The architect is of the opinion that we may not be able to get a full first floor and is advising that we might want to apply for a chalet style bungalow in order to be guaranteed to get it through planning. I am not a fan of chalet bungalows, I feel that often they look a bit shit and that the usable space in the first floor is limited compared to the actual floor space that is there. Because of this and the fact that time is on our side (kind of) I'm inclined to say that we apply for the full two stories and try to fight it, with the option to fall back to a chalet style bungalow if need be. But that does mean that this thread could be two years of me bitching about what a bunch of cunts my neighbours and the local planning officers are before any ground is broken!

Don't ask, don't get. I wish you the best of luck in getting what you want out of this. As another 70s bungalow owner I have many ambitions for extending up in the future. I've just spent the last few years bringing the current living space up to relatively modern standards, but without doing anything too short sighted that would prevent future enhancements. I'm definitely going to follow this for inspiration and tips.

We did this to a 50's bungalow.. Great area and we lived in it with minor alterations for a few years.. avocado bathroom etc.. then took the plunge and changed the 2 bedrooms upstairs into 4 bedrooms and bathroom and large landing.. worth the effort and managed to live in the house while the work was going on.. Only moved for 3 weeks when the kitchen was getting done.. and it wasn't even originally planned..

We pulled the roof off from the ridge back and created a large flat roof dormer along the entire length of the house.. I put the verges back on so from the road it looks like we have added a dormer window.. not a full extension.. before and after photo attached.. and also showing it's still a bungalow from the front..

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Just seen this thread. Subbed. I already find your advice in the Home DIY thread incredibly useful Bobbo, so looking forward to seeing how this goes. Good luck.

That looks fab.

That's amazing.

Subbed. Sweet bungalow and ambitious build ideas. Mainly interested in the ambition for Passive Haus.

Good luck dude

Cracking job!
I know this is personal so no need to answer but i'm curious as to how much it cost you.
As in the planning / building side of things not internal decoration..

No probs.. I don't want to hijack the thread.. We spent about £70k on it all in.. including new kitchen, appliances etc. Although I'm just outside Belfast so prices are hugely different that mainland UK.

Subbed. We just bought a 70's bungalow with pretty much the exact same intentions as you, minus the passive house stuff - that is the first I've heard of it. Very interesting. Look forward to seeing how this pans out, good luck.

Passive house would be great to do / have, but it's diminishing returns.. like trying to get a final kg off the weight of a bike.. We pumped all the walls and redid all the roof insulation to current standards, new windows and doors.. new rads and electrics too.. It all just depends on budget.. Also build in a reasonable contingency as stuff will happen!!!

@JonoMarshall can tell you all about Passive...

What do you need to know? There's no reason to pay for actual PassiveHaus status (an expensive plaque that won't increase the performance/value of your home), but we've 'achieved' the standard with a new build in Devon (~100 sqm 3 bed, so actually no mean feat given the space-to-walls ratio).

Outgoings:
MVHR, vents, design, fitting and setup was ~£10k
Ultra high-spec windows/doors/skylights were ~£12k
PV array and SunAmp PV Unit (DHW) was ~£7k
PassiveSlab foundation was ~£1k (excludes £4k piles cost)
Timber frame (installed to 0.6 airtightness or better) for ~52k

Cost savings that helped to offset the above:
No boiler
No thermal store
Bare minimum for plumbing
Almost no heating (3 small electric towel rails)

Benefits:
Very quiet
Very fresh air (always)
Much lower bills (~10% of the average)
Much better for the environment
Cooler in summer
Warmer in winter

I met with a few RetroFit companies when looking for a PH timber frame supplier, the retrofit stuff seems more complicated, but it's certainly possible.

Being able to plan/design/manage the freshness/humidity/temperature of your home is amazing. So many great (glazed) architectural builds feel somewhat stuffy by comparison!

That is stunning and a good idea to maximise floor space.

I'd discounted the idea of going for full passive certification for the exact reasons you have outlined but am very interested in doing something close to it. The biggest issue that I can see with the plans I have bubbling away in my head is that I want to retain all but one wall of the original structure then build on top of that with a glue lam timber structure. Where the join is will be difficult to make airtight.

I've talked to you in the past about MHVR and I'm sold! Done some more reading around it and I honestly can't see many downsides, the idea of being able to purge the air in the house I like, my wife already calls it daddy had a curry last night mode and we haven't even submitted planning drawings yet.

You say you don't have a boiler, does that mean that your hot water comes from an immersion heater or do you have hot water solar panels?

I have been watching the essential craftsman spec house series. I have to say I like the design of the house the guy is building.

As a tradesman I find it interesting to watch how people build in other countries and especially the states where timber framing is such a common method of construction.

Thanks.. we only actually physically added a 3 x 2m GF seating area and a bay window in the living room. We just built the FF on top of the existing cavity walls and just incorporated what was the triangle of roof space into the bedrooms upstairs.. Older houses are great, they generally just need the spaces rationalised..