Owning your own home

We spoke to Resi about potential work on a house we've put an offer on, and they gave a ballpark figure of £200k for a hip to gable loft conversion with a dormer and a full-width kitchen extension.

That figure sounds quite high, but is that just what it would be likely to end up snowballing to?

I'm confused - did the surveyor say anything was wrong right now with the roof, or just that it looked like one day there might be something wrong with it? As someone has already mentioned, the seller has no duty to fund ongoing maintenance for the buyer

Maybe a little high, obv depends on the size of them. The extension could easily be £100k and the loft conversion £50k but that's probably on the top end

I've just done a loft and 6m X 4m kitchen diner with knock through for 100k.

Please DM me some pictures!

I've just done a loft and 6m X 4m kitchen diner with knock through for 100k.

in London's famous London that seems really quite cheap for 2 extensions.

@tbc My brother just did a fairly cookie cutter loft extension. Loft was split into office/bathroom, and smallish bedroom halfway up the stairs. Think it ended up at 60k and that wasn't with any fancy finishes. In Catford.
I think everything's just expensive.

Our neighbour in E10 just did a loft company/non architect, pretty standard 2 rooms and a bathroom, albeit with a new roof, sourced a few things to keep costs down and is still looking at 70K+ so I don't think 200K is unrealistic for that and a kitchen extension.

I think that sounds about right - certainly wouldn’t be expecting less once all is said and done

We’re doing this at the moment. It’s going to be at least £200k. We’ve had a few quotes and the lowest we’ve had, which is with two separate companies, is £190k.

Basically the loft extension is going to end up being around £90k. We had one done in our previous house ten years ago and that cost £40k all in. This is slightly bigger and a hip to gable but material prices and labour have gone up enormously.

Also I’d suggest that it’s quote + 10% in my experience. Even if the quote is spot on there will be other stuff you didn’t account for which needs doing or you think ‘may as well do that’

My experience being decent and visceral

I'm not sure about the labour element for a loft conversion but I do know the totality of the materials cost me between 8-10k for mine because the loft company recommended I buy them all and stack them up in my garden because they were going up at ten pc a month at that point. I ended up paying about 40k for mine recently excluding professional fees.

I call it “Can you just” different name but still 10%
My estimates were pretty spot on for a small scale internal refit of £32k some things were under but that surplus rolled onto the next job which was a bit over, it was the mission creep of widening doorways/more sockets/switches/lighting beyond initial plans that blew the budget.
Was told it would easily be £50k+ if I wasn’t getting my hands dirty which surprised me as before getting in to this i would not have believed a bathroom/full interior refinish/internally insulate/skirting/new electrics, rads and pipework/secondary glazing of a 2 bed flat would cost the same as a small extension??

Yeah exactly - also bc if you’ve got trades in and stuff is messy you may as well. It’s such a faff getting ppl to quote and commit that the fact they’re there and doing work convinces you

Oof

This is going to hurt.

Im struggling to believe 50k tbh but london prices.

I forgot to include stripping crittall windows back to the galvanising by hand and priming/repainting, one of the windows is 4.9x 1.8m.
It’s taken me ages and i don’t think i could pay a tradesperson to do it to that level as it would probably be £3k+ and not be done to bare metal. 60 years of overpainting means they need to to stripped.
I’m using a mix of good locals recommended from here, north Kent trades who are happy to travel to SE London, friends with skills and my own time so adding 15k+ to the spend to be hands off and a firm to deal with everything isn’t unrealistic.
have been fairly shrewd with sourcing stuff and spent in the right areas and done shit loads of google time finding the right stuff, i’m freelance so have only taken on what work that comes my way and not had a weekend off since January and done plenty of evenings working after a day chipping away at paint.
Could have done it by throwing money at it but wanted to do it this way.

Have to add that i haven’t blinked at paying people to the work as they have all been top notch so far but was quoted £500 to ease half the windows and adjust the handles which i thought was a bit steep.

Sorry to say, I'm a little relieved to hear this - Bridge flooring being a bit crap that is; not you having bad work, that's not fair. We almost went with them but we're put off for a few reasons.

Firstly they didn't show up for the survey/measurement appointment, and didnt phone to say they were late or to rearrange; leaving me to chase them up to get someone round.

Then when got our quote with them, it seemed an awful lot, even after they knocked some money off.
We went to another local company (Lambourne carpets, also well reviewed) and their quote was literally half the price for the same product fitted - I had to double check the quote with them twice becuase I was sure they must have missed something!

When I phoned and told Bridge the price difference, they said "I'd snap their hands off at that price". They claimed their quote was so much more expensive becuase they employ their own fitters, but Lambourne said all their fitters have been working for them for 10+ years, and all their reviews specifically mention how pleased people are with their work.

Fingers crossed for you that they get it sorted without a fuss/needless expensive. Time will tell with Lambourne I guess - they're hopefully coming next week to template out job, then fit the following week - we could be in the same boat shortly...

Also: Please remind me tomorrow to message you our roofers details if you still need someone. He was recommend by our plumber - We initially had him in to remove the original vertical flue, do the lead flashing on the new horizontal flue and fix some loose/dropped tile; he was very reasonable on price, did very neat work (inc. some extras small bits for free) and was genuinely very friendly. Then we had him back to cleaned the whole roof/gutters for us, as it had never been done (60+ years of moss). I'll be getting him back again to re-tile the whole upper face of the house later this year, and again for the garages when their flat roofs are up for replacement.

Let's be honest, AGL are bargain basement offering, as mentioned I wasn't able to work with them as their communication was so bad/non-existent.
Buying the materials and storing them in your garden is a great example of level of service offered.
If your happy you're happy, but they are about as cheap as humanly possible.

Our loft with Bespoke issuing to end up around 70K I think, and they are also on the cheap end of the spectrum.

Although saying all that, folks opposite have had a loft done which I would find it hard to believe isn't the cheapest job physically possible.

Who did the peeps opposite use? Tbh bespoke are basically everywhere in leytonstone and Walthamstow. I'm a bit out of touch with what lofts cost now but if they are nudging 70 grand they've basically doubled from what they cost 5/6 years ago (my L shaped one was about 35/36k ish in 2017).

I don't see how it's sustainable really.

Just some random lad, pretty much on his own, called "Ping" and spoke little to no English, not sure how legals/planning were done and they have put the roof up massively which obvs isn't allowed.

And yeah, have pretty much doubled, its madness, my neighbours was 45K 4 years ago, by Herts and Essex (another Lopas company), but that was also a very bad job.

I'm prob adding 10k on to our loft due to things I want/won't compromise on - ie not having plastic cladding or windows.

Just some random lad, pretty much on his own, called "Ping" and spoke little to no English

Whatlol

Yeah, family are flipping the house so the whole thing is being redone I think, but in the cheapest and least tasteful way humanly possible. I assume they just went with the cheapest outfit they could find.

Black PVC windows with nice chunky bezels are already being put in the front.

TBF Ping has done a good job, fit and finish wise, as far as I can see.

Anyone else going through a loft conversion having to have cement board on the dormer cheeks instead of ply/OSB for fire purposes? Got this from the Approved Inspector and it's a right ball-ache because it doesn't play nicely with seamed metal cladding!