How To Make A Home Extension By Yourself

While living in a house of your own there comes a point when you need the extra space for new members of your family. Extra fees for agents and exhausting quests follow the moving out while extension can be made without additional stress. You just need a plan, tools (reliable cordless drill, best stud finder, claw hammer, and some others), skills, and a great desire to own a comfortable house for your family.

7 Tips to Make Extensions Successful

1. Estimate the Cost

The quality and complexity of the project are the determinants. Besides, you should consider an architect or structural engineer’s fees, as well as whether you make two or a single row extension (in the latter case, think of one more roof and foundation). The average price for a square meter is $1.500 should be expected.

2. Arrange Extension Insurance

Don’t skip this step, otherwise, home insurers will exclude loss or damage whilst the property is undergoing alteration or renovation. You need to have Extension Insurance on the stage of planning and cover the whole range of works until the commissioning.

3. Do you Need PD?

Make sure your changes do not need Permitted Development (PD). For example, you should do a new extension using the similar to the existing dwelling materials to extend under PD. Learn the rules but note that the list of requirements vary depending on the area you live in. Check other building regulations, documents, or permissions you may need.

4. Use Your Skills to Reduce Costs

Make a list of your skills to cut labor costs. Now, what would that be?
? Fix curtain poles and hang curtains.
? Build fitted furniture and kitchen units.
? Fit skirting and architrave or do any other second fix carpentry.
? Paint and decorate.
? Fix ceramic wall tiling or paper.
? Add lighting appliances.
? Fit sockets and switch.
Certainly, you need some carpentry and electrical skills to handle everything mentioned above. However, in case of lacking them, you can just clean, plant, or do minimum superficial repairs.

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5. Come up with New Design

If you have knowledge and experience, you can design your own extension and use structural engineers or a build/design company for advice if you are a rookie. Either way, there are plenty of attractive and functional samples on the Web that can present novelties, give useful hints or just inspire the creative ideas. Also, remember to think about the criteria for renovating so that nothing gets missed off your checklist.

6. Hire Credible Builders

Home extensions are always stressful and come with dirt, mess, and plenty of strangers that pace back and forth being rather brusque sometimes. That’s why you should hire a brigade to feel comfortable while getting around those people. You need to trust them, so, check their reputation, contact their previous customers or make other “researches” to ascertain their decency. Besides, it would be great to discuss the schedule of all building works to plan your day fruitfully.

7. Think of Your Neighbors

In case of building upper-floor balconies that would view your neighbor’s house, use obscure frosted glass or install them at a high level. You can also fit rooftop windows and to get the advantage of having natural light into your space. Try to plan extensions without overshadowing your neighbors because it can limit the permissible size.

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