To extend or not to extend?!

[Mrs Lamb]

Long story short, we live in 3 bed semi. We love our house, street and neighbours but wondering whether we should stay and extend or move.

We have a very old conservatory on back of kitchen which leaks and is unusable as a living space. We had quotes of around 25K to knock it down and build a room instead.

However we also need a new kitchen and thought it would be nicer to extend out and have one big kitchen/living area however I understand this would require a RSJ (?) which will likely increase quote. We also have a manhole that would need relocating (can’t build over) hence more money.

As I said, we love our home but all this work is likely to cost 35k+ and we won’t gain any additional space upstairs.

4 beds in our area rarely come up but would be double our current mortgage anyway. However we would need to remortgage for the extension anyway and if we do all that work we would have to stay 5-10 years to get value.

Feel like we are going around in circles! Any advice/shared experience welcome

 

[Doghouse Riley]

Hi and welcome.


We had a small extension to our semi, decades ago.
There was an extended kitchen as part of the original build. The owners of the adjoining semi decided to have the same extension built when I told them about our plans and that I wanted to have the nw wall as an extension of the "party wall." Both builds att the same time meant only the party wall had to be built.
If you do have an extension, get your neighbours to agree to have the wall built as an extension of the party wall, so you don't lose any space. It would be in their interests. If they don't have an extension, it's a selling point as a purchaser could have an exttension tied into the wall.

Since that time, many of the similar house in our road have had bigger extension,s like the one you plan.

Whatever the cost I suggest you have an RSJ.

This is a photo of our ground floor extension, it takes up about half of the space beyond the chimney breast. There is an RSJ supporting the back wall of the house just above the ceiling, so the ceiling is "seamless."

This is a scan of the plan of a similar house in our road, which had an extension last year, (you can check on any local development past or present, on-line at your local council offices, it might give you some ideas).
They originally had a conservatory beyond what were the original French windows like we all had, one door and two side windows. (left plan). They had the conservatory demolished and had this extension built. But itt doesn't look like they had a full width RSJ put where I've indicated, which makes it a bit of a nonsense, there will probably be a beam above the two bits of wall sticking out.

I think it spoils the aspectt of the enlarged room. It was probably cheaper, but whatever would have been the additional cost, they'd have forgotten about it within a few years.

The other semi had the same smaller extension like ours years ago, but as you will see there are now two walls so each semi has less space. Only a few inches but it makes a difference. Maybe their neighbours wouldn't agree to them using their wall.

I hope this helps.