ElliotS

So I had my house valued yesterday and it smashed my expected value of 450k and came in at a nice value of 600K which i was totally shocked about. I asked the estate agent what he would value it at with the upstairs addition and he said he wouldnt sell it for less than 700k with that addition in todays market. My initial thought when hearing the value was to sell up and move on but the more Im thinking, the more im returning back to getting upstairs done. When factoring the fees involved in moving house and stamp duty, im a nice little chunk of the way towards the additional floor. Im thinking the comfort ill gain outweighs what it will be worth after ive done the work. If i extend upwards then ill have no reason to move on until either the kids have grown up or an unmissable opportunity arrises to build on a plot by which point i guess the house value would of increased to cover the cost of work done. I paid 150k for the house so a nice little bit of equity in it even after the cost of work ive already done. ive started my investigation work in the meantime for someone with good knowledge of the area to see what comes up, failing that, i think i stand in a good position to apply for full planning anyway. Myself nor the architect can see any obvious reason the council would refuse. I just have to get past the comments from the houses that are nowhere near mine but feel they have to stick their nose in as if they are some kind of HO president. That caused me more stress than anything when my extension was done as they outright lied to the council about what i was doing which led to a knock on the door from an enforcement officer.

Makes sense. I guess i will be able to achieve better thermal insulation with timber frame too.

Im asked him to give me a call, ill see what the details are. Would building up in timber frame help with structural side of things? Logically its less weight on the foundations and so work required might be reduced?

I would do but my council (cheshire East) don't offer it for individual projects, only on applications for larger projects basically for developers

Yeah my worry is the year the house was built but I can’t find any official documentation to confirm it nor are the OS maps very clear. How would I make the case to the council that It falls inside of the permitted development window? I can’t even ask the neighbours because my house shows up in maps properly in the early 50’s but very few houses around it. I’ve even tried census records but that returned nothing. It looks like the whole of the neighbourhood was part of a farm with various farm buildings on the land that chop and change throughout the years of OS maps

I believe there was a new planning rule around 2020 that allowed an additional floor to a single storey building or 2 additional floors to a 2 storey building under permitted development, it still has to have prior approval from the council to prove it ticks all the correct boxes though

The more im thinking about it, following SE recommendation to not knock down, the more im favouring going on top of existing with work done to foundations as required. If I can move bedrooms upstairs and insulate properly, I can re-introduce the log burner and use that when needed for downstairs (which is what has worked since we moved in the house). I then dont need to mess with anythig downstairs as i already have staircase in the extension. I cant find the exact date my house was built even on Land Registry deeds, but its at some point around 1945-1950. I can go up a floor under PD if the house was built after 1st July 47, right? How do i know whether i qualify if i have no accurate record? I can only see that a building pops up on OS maps around said years, however does look out of position to where my current house is so maybe it was something else before being turned to a house?

Had a chat with my SE and his advice was to make foundations good and go on top of existing house. He has already surveyed them as part of the extension (well what little foundations there is)

I have imagined it a thousand different ways haha! To be honest, i dont want to change anything about the extension, it works perfectly and the space its give us is amazing. I would even keep the downstairs layout pretty much as is, if I had the same floor area upstairs to build bedrooms. My current house size relative to the garden and outbuilding size is as good as we can ask for given the plot we have

I could do that for sure, and it ticks the box for the thermal side of things but its literally a square bungalow so the layout for 3 bedrooms and a kitchen wouldn't change much at all. The reason for going up is to have all of that space dedicated to bedrooms and make use of the new one as part of the extension

Also, in your opinion, is the option of taking down the front and rebuilding feasible from a technical perspective? How would it effect the extension or would i like have to just blank it off temporarily until we built back to it?

I understand what you are saying, its just that sometimes it can get overwhelming with options and i keep looping back to different scenarios. i already have one of the most expensive houses on the street now since the work has been done. If i had a suitable plot of land to buy and build on, the for sale sign would go up tomorrow but as we all know, those opportunities come few and far between. one of my sticking points is we built a nice garden outbuilding which hosts our garage, gym, bar and wifes hair room. The hair room alone is worth alot to us as it means we arent renting anywhere for her to work. finding a property with space to have this again is difficult at the price range we are looking when buying somewhere new.

I know right! if i'd have known what I do now that is exactly what I would have done. I guess it would depend if i pulled the front end down and it was then classed as an extension or new dwelling? I'm not sure, I dont think ive seen or heard of it being done to be honest

As requested, a shorter version of my predicament ha! i have a 1940's bungalow that i renovated and added a 2 storey extension (rear) to about 2 years ago. I now dont like the layout of the original bungalow as it is small and doesnt work very well with 3 bedrooms (one used to be living room). I have a new amazing master bedroom upstairs in the extension but cant use it as i have 2 young children so i need to be downstairs. The original bungalow is always cold as there is no cavity and recently covered log burner so heating bills have gone up alot. Id like to know if it would be best to: A) knock down the original part of the house and re-build as a full 2 storey house with modern regs b) Try for permitted development to go up a floor and make upstairs bedroom better insulated, providing not too much work in footings c) do a loft conversion with a dormer possibly, would have to be a double hip to gable conversion. d) its not worth the hassle and to move on to another property. (I do love where we live though and nothing on the market at the moment that ticks the boxes we want) I got the house for 150k and its worth around 450k now. I have a team of all trades and i am the teams project manager so i have total control of the project whichever way we go. would love to get different opinions and responses. Let me know if there is any questions. 850_GA-003 PROPOSED PLAN.pdf

I sure can