Loft conversion shell

Valandil3

Hope there's some people on here that can help me and my girlfriend have just bought our first house, we know from the survey the roof tiles and sarking need replacing. Well my uncle is a tiler so he'll be doing that, though not for mates rates or anything.

Tons of houses around us have loft conversions, and whilst the roofs off we were thinking of doing the same. It's a 50s end of terrace, lots of space in the loft with a high pitch, hipped end.

I come from a family of heavy diyers and am keen to get stuck in myself, but we want the shell done quickly as it will be open to the elements.

So what are we looking at roughly (a price range would be great!) for building up the gable wall, extending the roof over it and putting a full width rear dormer in? Bear in mind we're interested in the costs on top of the tiles and fascias being replaced as we have to do that anyway. Want to figure out if it's worth getting plans done.

So nothing inside, just bringing that to watertight. I can't really think what would be all that expensive for it? Might be a good time to put some steels in as well I guess, or may be required.

Any help appreciated!

Le_Kirk

I am sure there will be help coming along soon but in the meantime have you considered planning permission (you may not need it under permitted development) but surely Building Control would need to be involved and I expect you would need a structural engineer to carry out calculations for you

Valandil3

Thanks for the reply, yea we're talking to an architect about a couple of other things at the moment anyway so if we go ahead with it they'll be doing the plans, planning permission and building control application. We're just trying to figure out if we should get the plans done, not cheap!

J_B

Never heard of sarking - every day's a school day!!

Why would the roof need replacing??

Le_Kirk

J_B wrote: »

Never heard of sarking - every day's a school day!!

It means taking the mickey out of roofing felt.:)

Gloomendoom

J_B wrote: »

Why would the roof need replacing??

From my experience of buying houses, every survey says that the roof needs replacing or will do soon.

steeeb

Structural Engineer Calcs - 600-800
Building Control fees (they come out and inspect it at various intervals) - Varies per council
Hip to Gable conversion - will the person doing the roofing not know? If not, get a quote from a builder - you'll never get a good estimate here.
Dormer 5-15k depending on size - said builder can probably quote for this too.
Strengthening of Floor - You'll need to see what the structual engineer says you need first, then get quotes.

Also bare in mind you'll also need:
- Staircase to the room (complies with part k) - must come down into a hallway, not a room or anything.
- Fire doors for ALL doors to said hallway, on all levels.
- Mains powered LINKed smoke alarms on all levels, possibly a linked heat detector in the kitchen also.
- Insulation both below the floor and under the new roof, plasterboarding etc.
- Probably loads of other bits.

You'll need all of the above for building control to sign off on it, otherwise it can't be classed as a habitable room - if not classed as a habitable room it likely won't increase property price (and may in fact make it harder to sell or drop price as anyone wanting to do the conversion themselves would need to undo most/all your work first and then re-do it and try to obtain building control approval).

There are plenty of companies that specialise in loft conversions. Get one round, they'll do free quotations - tell them you just want a shell etc and see what price they give - you'll likely learn a bit of what's involved too, perhaps ask for an itemised quote - then take off the labor if doing it yourself and you'll have a good idea what it'll cost.

Valandil3

Gloomendoom wrote: »

From my experience of buying houses, every survey says that the roof needs replacing or will do soon.

Ha fair point! There is barely any sarking (or felt as it looks like you guys prefer ) left and you can see lots of daylight through the tiles. I'm no roofer, maybe that's fairly normal, but we were trusting the survey to be honest. He recorded high moisture readings in the loft. Another dimension I didn't mention is that we want to remove the rear chimney breasts on both floors (fronts have already been done, though the stack is left hanging in the roof) so it would be a good time to remove the whole stack whilst the roofs off. So all these projects tie in quite nicely..

steeeb wrote: »

Structural Engineer Calcs - 600-800
Building Control fees (they come out and inspect it at various intervals) - Varies per council
Hip to Gable conversion - will the person doing the roofing not know? If not, get a quote from a builder - you'll never get a good estimate here.
Dormer 5-15k depending on size - said builder can probably quote for this too.
Strengthening of Floor - You'll need to see what the structual engineer says you need first, then get quotes.

Also bare in mind you'll also need:
- Staircase to the room (complies with part k) - must come down into a hallway, not a room or anything.
- Fire doors for ALL doors to said hallway, on all levels.
- Mains powered LINKed smoke alarms on all levels, possibly a linked heat detector in the kitchen also.
- Insulation both below the floor and under the new roof, plasterboarding etc.
- Probably loads of other bits.

You'll need all of the above for building control to sign off on it, otherwise it can't be classed as a habitable room - if not classed as a habitable room it likely won't increase property price (and may in fact make it harder to sell or drop price as anyone wanting to do the conversion themselves would need to undo most/all your work first and then re-do it and try to obtain building control approval).

There are plenty of companies that specialise in loft conversions. Get one round, they'll do free quotations - tell them you just want a shell etc and see what price they give - you'll likely learn a bit of what's involved too, perhaps ask for an itemised quote - then take off the labor if doing it yourself and you'll have a good idea what it'll cost.

I think you're right in that we'll have to get someone in to quote. Good point about the itemised quote, thanks. After I posted this I looked up some conversion companies and there were quite a lot that would do shell only, I thought they would turn their noses up at it so was reluctant. We still want much less done by builders than most though I guess.

All the other stuff like stairs, fire doors, insulation, electrics etc can all be done by ourselves at a later date and will be figured out with the plans so I'm not worried about those for now. All pale in comparison with what my old man does in his spare time and he only lives 40mins away so plenty of help at hand! In fact he was mystified as to why I would pay for someone to do the roof structure but there you are Just want to see if it's worthwhile us paying for the plans to get drawn up, if we can't afford/don't want to shell out for the basic shell (ha) then there's no point in the plans.

I'm surprised by your estimate for the dormer though, unless we're not on the same page? it would be 6m wide roughly and full height, but with the roof tiles already off surely it's just a case of building the wooden frame (maybe brick at the side on the outside and party wall I guess), putting the windows in, for arguments sake tiling the outside (offset against the tiling that would be done anyway) and doing the flat roof? Watertight and external finishing is all we're after. Maybe I'm dreaming and please tell me if I am, but I would have thought £5k for the building work would have been steep. Surely it wouldn't be more than 2 weeks of work, if that?

Hoploz

Don't get a specialist loft conversion co unless you want them to do the whole lot start to finish. I had one in and they weren't interested in just adding a dormer where we already had a velux - gave us a quote of 35k when our loft is already a bedroom to reasonably modern standards as it was only built in 2002.