Ok another house buying related Q, I thought I could have Googled up the
answer but no go.

A couple of houses have had potential, but don't 'tick all the boxes' in
terms of rooms/space . Which has got us wondering about buying with a
view to extending if we found the right property - say extending a
kitchen and adding another bedroom sort of thing.

Never had to have any building work done, I've no idea really of the
costs of such things (ok an extension is going to cost thousands but how
many?). Now I realise that costs vary greatly depending on location,
standard of finish, fittings etc. but there surely are some guide
figures around of say costs per Sqm or whatever for house building
works.

All I'm looking for is enough of a figure to be able to cost it into the
house buying budget, any suggestions, or even just some rough costs of
extensions people have had built?
--
Chris French, Leeds

"chris French" wrote in message
...
Ok another house buying related Q, I thought I could have Googled up
the
answer but no go.

A couple of houses have had potential, but don't 'tick all the boxes'
in
terms of rooms/space . Which has got us wondering about buying with a
view to extending if we found the right property - say extending a
kitchen and adding another bedroom sort of thing.

Never had to have any building work done, I've no idea really of the
costs of such things (ok an extension is going to cost thousands but
how
many?). Now I realise that costs vary greatly depending on location,
standard of finish, fittings etc. but there surely are some guide
figures around of say costs per Sqm or whatever for house building
works.

All I'm looking for is enough of a figure to be able to cost it into
the
house buying budget, any suggestions, or even just some rough costs of
extensions people have had built?
--
Chris French, Leeds

£1000/m^2 is what I've been told in numerous places, by numerous people.

"chris French" wrote in message
news:

snip


All I'm looking for is enough of a figure to be able to cost it into
the
house buying budget, any suggestions, or even just some rough costs of
extensions people have had built?
--
Chris French, Leeds

£1000/m^2 is what I've been told in numerous places, by numerous people.

Is that per m sq ground plan area, or internal floor area including
upstairs & downstairs?

"jim_in_sussex" wrote in message
om...
"chris French" wrote in message
news:

snip


All I'm looking for is enough of a figure to be able to cost it into
the
house buying budget, any suggestions, or even just some rough costs of
extensions people have had built?
--
Chris French, Leeds

£1000/m^2 is what I've been told in numerous places, by numerous people.

Is that per m sq ground plan area, or internal floor area including
upstairs & downstairs?

There are two ways to deal with these approximate costs. One is to use a
figure of say £700 m2 for a single storey and £1000 m2 for a double, the
other is to use a figure of say £600 m2 and add together areas of both
ground and subsequent floor. Its important to know which figure you have
been given.

In each case, these are normally based on external 'footprint' on the
ground.

In either case, one should not give too much credence to any such
calculation or to those who band these figures about, as they are wildly
inaccurate for cost estimating purposes. A minor alteration to some
measurements or internal fit out, can greatly effect the £ m2 price, and
local rates can vary too.

The only time to trust such figures is if a local builder has built similar
extensions and has worked out an average build cost for that particular
area.

So the only figures that should be obtained is a rough estimate from local
builders based on "... how much for a two storey side extension with pitched
roof" etc. Such estimates will normally be to the nearest £5000

If you are working to a tight budget, m2 approximations should be avoided

dg

In message , dg
writes
"jim_in_sussex" wrote in message
. com...
"chris French" wrote in message
news:

snip


All I'm looking for is enough of a figure to be able to cost it into
the
house buying budget, any suggestions, or even just some rough costs of
extensions people have had built?
--
Chris French, Leeds

£1000/m^2 is what I've been told in numerous places, by numerous people.

Is that per m sq ground plan area, or internal floor area including
upstairs & downstairs?

There are two ways to deal with these approximate costs. One is to use
a figure of say £700 m2 for a single storey and £1000 m2 for a double,
the other is to use a figure of say £600 m2 and add together areas of
both ground and subsequent floor. Its important to know which figure
you have been given.

In each case, these are normally based on external 'footprint' on the
ground.

snip

So the only figures that should be obtained is a rough estimate from
local builders based on "... how much for a two storey side extension
with pitched roof" etc. Such estimates will normally be to the nearest
£5000

If you are working to a tight budget, m2 approximations should be avoided

We aren't at the stage of tight budgets yet, to the nearest 5 grand
would be more than precise enough for my purposes :-) In fact the
nearest 10 is more than good enough.

Just looking for a rough way to judge where to put or max purchase
price if we were to allow for building an extension
--
Chris French, Leeds

We are in the process of having an extension built at the moment. 2
new bedrooms and a new bathroom upstairs, plus integrated garage,
utility room, toilet, small store room and sun room downstairs.
Basically we have doubled the size of the house. We got 3 quotes all
from FMB registered builders, which all came in at about £43,000 ex
vat. (This is in Chesterfield, Derbyshire).

However this is not what you will end up spending! The quotes only
allocate a few hundred pounds for the new bathroom (B&Q Warehouse
jobs), for example. True cost will be about £3,500 (Ambience Bain
level C price band)! Also, don't forget that you will need to "tidy
up" outside with some landscaping, and if you "get a little man in"
(to quote mr Titchmarsh), you can figure a few more thousand, then
there is the fact that the builders only quote for 1 double socket in
each room and you will want two or three, etc etc. The builders we had
said we ought to add on about 25% to the original quote to allow for
these sort of deviations, but I will have borrowed £90,000 to do all
the work, fitting and furnishing it, and to do the landscaping, so
doubling would seem to be more like it.

Having said that we have spec'd the fittings quite highly, and this
will include all carpets, curtains, new kitchen, new appliances new
wardrobes etc etc etc.

Hope this helps.

Dean.

chris French wrote in message ...
Ok another house buying related Q, I thought I could have Googled up the
answer but no go.

A couple of houses have had potential, but don't 'tick all the boxes' in
terms of rooms/space . Which has got us wondering about buying with a
view to extending if we found the right property - say extending a
kitchen and adding another bedroom sort of thing.

Never had to have any building work done, I've no idea really of the
costs of such things (ok an extension is going to cost thousands but how
many?). Now I realise that costs vary greatly depending on location,
standard of finish, fittings etc. but there surely are some guide
figures around of say costs per Sqm or whatever for house building
works.

All I'm looking for is enough of a figure to be able to cost it into the
house buying budget, any suggestions, or even just some rough costs of
extensions people have had built?

In message , Dean
writes
However this is not what you will end up spending! The quotes only
allocate a few hundred pounds for the new bathroom (B&Q Warehouse
jobs), for example. True cost will be about £3,500 (Ambience Bain
level C price band)! Also, don't forget that you will need to "tidy
up" outside with some landscaping, and if you "get a little man in"
(to quote mr Titchmarsh), you can figure a few more thousand, then
there is the fact that the builders only quote for 1 double socket in
each room and you will want two or three, etc etc. The builders we had
said we ought to add on about 25% to the original quote to allow for
these sort of deviations,

Odd way to go about quoting - wouldn't it make n more sense to give a
quote for what is actually required by the client?

--
Chris French, Leeds

Chris,
We are currently having an extension built to add a dining room beside
the kitchen at the back of the garage and a one bedroom with ensuite over
the garage. We had a few quotes from £30k to £45k, in the end the lowest
quote builder let us down as he kept postponing the start date from
June-Oct, so we had another builder quote for £38k and they started two
weeks later. We chose the current builder on a friends reference and in
hindsight we should have done this before rather than choosing the cheapest.
The current builders have displayed excellent quality of work and
professionalism, something I know we wouldn't have received with the cheap
one. They had six on site this week doing the brickwork and it has gone up
very fast. The quote does not include plumbing and electrics, we are doing
that ourselves, it's purely for a plastered finish. The only extra has been
£900 for digging out the foundations twice as deep, on request of the
buildings inspector. The house is built upon a slope and the house
foundations are very deep. Hope this helps.

Graham

extension
"chris French" wrote in message
...
Ok another house buying related Q, I thought I could have Googled up the
answer but no go.

A couple of houses have had potential, but don't 'tick all the boxes' in
terms of rooms/space . Which has got us wondering about buying with a view
to extending if we found the right property - say extending a kitchen and
adding another bedroom sort of thing.

Never had to have any building work done, I've no idea really of the costs
of such things (ok an extension is going to cost thousands but how many?).
Now I realise that costs vary greatly depending on location, standard of
finish, fittings etc. but there surely are some guide figures around of
say costs per Sqm or whatever for house building works.

All I'm looking for is enough of a figure to be able to cost it into the
house buying budget, any suggestions, or even just some rough costs of
extensions people have had built?
--
Chris French, Leeds