Home Improvements and Extension advice

crvs

HI All,
We recently bought 3 bedroom semi detached house in Aerdeen, Scotland in the hope we can remodel
inside layout and possibly extend at back to add more space with a budget of £30k. We approached an architect
and his fee for planning stage and building warrant stage work together alone is £4.5k.
Over all bill is 7.7k + vat (contact another architect to submit a proposal to get a general idea).


We need to account for structure engg and application fee in excess to his fee.
Armed with the fact that I would be spending £10k for architect fee alone, Was planning to call well established surveyor to help me with drawings required for planning and building stage and contract building work to good rated builder from www.mybuilder.com
Any suggestion?
Thanks,
V

Doozergirl

£30k is unlikely to be enough money to remodel a house and build an extension.

There are definitely cheaper architects out there, especially when you have a low budget - the design isn't going to be all that exciting.

There is an In My Home board which your thread might be better suited to.

crvs

Thanks Doozergirl.

crvs

This post is now posted in my home board.

somethingcorporate

That fee is obscene! Can you not just do the basic designs yourself? It's a 3-bed house - how much do you plan to do that requires such an extensive architect involvement?

We did a remodel downstairs by moving/removing walls, adding steel supports etc but none of it needed anything but building regs and structural engineering calcs (<£500 in total) and we have got PP for an extension and I did the drawings myself in Excel so was just the application fee and building regs (again <£500 in total).

There really is no need to spend £7k on an architect for a relatively modest project, especially when your entire budget is £30k. For a house remodel and extension I would expect to spend close to twice that and think you have an unrealistic view if you think with your left over £23k you can build an extension and remodel.

crvs

Doesn't steel support requires structural engg. You are right on our budget being unrealistic as it was after paying architect fee.