About to embark on a loft conversion....sooo many costs!

confusedroast

Hi All

We are about to extend our first floor flat into the loft
We have the entire top floor of a victorian house so its rather big - we have a massive loft that is in two parts - one over the bedroom with a loft hatch which we use to store stuff and the other part is at the front of the house where our living room and kitchen diner are - the chimney breast have been removed and we have rsj's in the loft to support this

I have planning permission, permission from the freeholder and am no having to go through building control
WE have to pay another £550 to building control and submit drawings...how thorough do these drawings have to be?

My friend who is a builder is doing the conversion for us, he also completely renovated my flat a few years back- we were quoted £35K but he is doing it for £15K for us!

Does anoyone have any experience of flats and building control...is this going to be hard?

G_M

and am no having to go through building control

You mean 'now' I assume, not 'not'?!

how thorough do these drawings have to be?

Thorough. They need to know precisely what you are doing, what materials you're using, what structural changes you're making....

Their job is to ensure a) it is safe and b) it complies with standards like insulation etc

yup - expensive. But you're saving £15K so .... :T

If you and your builder speak to the the Building Control inspector - he'll advise.

BudgetBlonde

I don't have much experience but I am also about to start a loft conversion. I have gone with someone who was recommended to me as a loft specialist. I chose a specialist rather than an all round builder precisely to help me work out what regulations/ permissions I need to sort. Having said that, if I'd had a friend who could knock £15k off I'd have snatched their hand off!
To give you an idea, mine is a 2 bed terrace which is having a dorma built at the back to make a third bed and en-suite. I'm having my existing upstairs ceilings lowered to increase head height. The plans submitted to my council have been drawn up by an architect (I asked the loft man for a good contact) this has cost me £900+VAT for the drawings. It's going to cost and extra £500 ish for all the building consents. You may also have to pay for a building inspector to check the work once it commences. I'm also paying about £300 for a structural engineer to design 3 beams to take the extra weight.
There may be other regulation implications worth checking. Because my house will be 3 stories I have to have certain hand rails fitted and all my doors have to be fire doors, they call them "30 minues resistant" or something. All the wall structures have to have 30 minutes of resistance in them too. I also have to have hard wired fire alarms on all levels (not battery operated).
In all, my work is costing about £25k plus about £2k for fees.
HTH

confusedroast

I already paid £1200 for thorough architect plans - from this I drew the details for the planning permission, have already drawn some for the conversion (basic velux not dormer) which the building control department say are okay (popped into their office)
We reckon we can strengthen the beams rather than use steel, currently they are 4 inches so we are stengthening them another 2 inches, my builder has done many loft conversions before and I have already been round to see his handy work in 4 flats all of which are pukka
I reckon if anything is a miss we just do it as we go onalong, as long as the building inspector says "You need to do this" and we do it it should be a okay
I am paying £580 thats for the size of the area in square meters and three visits at the start, middle and end for the building control officer. We wont be here for the first 2 weeks of the build as my builder has said this is the messiest and with a 5 month old daughter too dangerous so we have booked a holiday - my builder is going to use this 2 weeks to put the velux windows in (one is a MOE means of Escape window), strengthen the floor joists and ceiling, put down the insulation etc, he will have to liase direct with the building control officer and already knows that he wont get his fee if he doesnt do exactly what the building control officer says!

confusedroast

its not a fulll plans application I need to make by the way just a building control notice...

Fire_Fox

Have you had an informal chat with Building Control to find out what they need to see? Is there any information on the council website?

Jon_Tiffany

Submitting good quality and detailed drawings to the council will save time in the long run, otherwise you may find the council keep coming back with lots questions. Take a look at About Loft Conversions - its a site intended to provide info on loft conversions.

The best approach, working on the assumption that you do not need planning permission is to submit the drawing to the council for review. Its much better for any potential issues to spotted before the work starts.

The building control officer will want to see the works at various stages of the build. They will want to check many aspects of the work such as, correct installation of any steels, that timber work is correct, fire doors, fire alarms and insulation.

Its essential that the work is inspected and properly signed off, otherwise you may have trouble when it comes to selling in the future. And dont forget that any electrical work will need to be completed by a 'Part P' qualified electrician.

roses

Hi, your house sounds just like mine.

I got a main bedroom built in the main loft area and a seperate bathroom (not en suite so everyone can use it) built in the 2nd smaller loft.

£15k is cheap. Materials alone cost about £20-25k alone!

confusedroast

Building control have said as its not a full plans application they need rough ideas
I have the architect drawings of the plans of the layout of the flat and the loft area
I have copied these and put in our estimation of where the stairs will go, boarding up the living room door and opening up the living room into the kitchen diner with a rsj, the dimensions, what materials we are using, the stircase with the fire door at the top and the MOE velux window nearest to the stairs
I am going to pop inot the loft shop in Enfield tomorrow as apparntly they help out with drawings too
I am not going to pay out another £500 for a structural engineer to draw plans and tell me what we already know

confusedroast

Pre-site approval

If you choose to use a Local Authority building control service, there are three types of application for approval you can make.

• Full Plans: where drawings, details and other supporting information is submitted for checking and a formal decision notice (approval, conditional approval or rejection) is given.
• Building Notice: a less detailed form of application where minimal information is initially required (although the Local Authority may request further detail) and no formal decision is given. The approval process is much more heavily weighted towards the work in progress.
• Regularisation: a means of applying for retrospective approval of work that was previously carried out without Building Regulations approval.

Got this off the main building regs website

The council have sent me forms for the building notice so I imagine this means as it says - its work thats checked in progress, and as such I reckon I am just going to send in our initital drawing ideas, if they need more information then I am sure they will be in touch

dander

For a building notice the plans don't have to be thorough. I built a very small extension on a buliding notice. I drew the plans myself with a drawing pen, a ruler, a set square and some graph paper. They did, if I recall correctly, require an ordanance survey plan showing location and boundaries, which fortunately I had as part of my lease, but that can cost to get hold of.

The main disadvantage with the building notice is that if builder has made assumptions in the quote that one way of doing things would be fine and building control insist on another way, then your costs can change during the build, but most builders are going to be experienced enough with building control on something like this to know what to expect.