Looking at converting the loft on our 30’s semi detached house near Bristol, adding a large bedroom and a bathroom. We’re getting quotes of £44k to £52k which is a fair bit more than expected. This is for a fully ‘project managed’ build, just pay the money and they do everything. Don’t think planning permission is needed these days anyway unless you increase the footprint of the house.

Do these quotes seem about right? I know the loft conversion companies have more work than they can handle at the moment so that might have some bearing on the prices.

Any creative ideas as to how we could do this more cheaply would be welcome!

My mates next door neighbours just had one done and they were saying about 40k and theirs is also a 30s semi.

Looks good and has added a fair chunk of space for them but they will never recoup the value against the value of the property.

Take in to consideration things like party wall agreements might be needed with your neighbours and approach them in advance. You never know, they might want theirs doing too.

Gable raise?
Dormers?
Are you in a conservation area?
Article 4 Directives in place for your road?
If the prices are are inc VAT they might well be right depending on the above given what my jobs are built for in Hertfordshire.

£44-52k? I’m in the wrong business.

Is there any reason you aren’t considering doing it yourself? I know nothing about these things and I did our attic. There was no bathroom involved, but I stripped it out, laid new floor, built stud walls, ran electric cable for lights (got a sparky to actually connect it to the ring main), cut and installed installation, mounted plasterboard, fitted skirting boards, window surrounds and doors, and decorated it. Trades I got in were sparky, plasterer, plumber to remove disused water tank and carpet fitters. Cost me about £1500 all in for ~8m x 4m room, £350 of which was plastering and £500 for carpet and fitting. I had advice re: breathing space between joists/insulation/roof tiles and other condensation avoidance methods, but it really wasn’t much hassle at all.

Cue someone telling me why my house is about to fall down/blow up/rot/burn because I didn’t consider x, y and z…

Is there any reason you aren’t considering doing it yourself?

In most cases the beams cross the roof space so the roof needs removing and rebuilding to create a space for a room. Not an amateur type job.

I have just realised my parents place doesn’t have that though so might consider doing that for them!

We have just finished on one within the last couple of weeks.

If your added space is less than 50 cubic metres then you don’t need planning permission, but it still needs to be submitted to the council for a certificate of Lawful Permitted Development. Any other extensions that you might have had on the house will be included in the 50m3 rule.

We’ve had a room with en-suite and french doors (Juliet balcony), hip to gable build (they had to build up the end wall). We are based in the NW so prices might be lowers but our job fully project managed without us having to do anything* came in at £29.5k for the finished build including the bathroom fitted. We had additional costs of fitting the bedroom, decorating and carpets etc, but I’m pretty handy so I built all the fitted wardrobes and did all the decorating etc.

*even on a fully managed job, you might need to stay on top of what’s happening and ongoing snagging/changes etc. Our build was a quality build but I had to keep on top of the builder’s interpretation of certain things and had them change various things – there are always things that can only be decided upon once the build has started.

On ours they couldn’t guarantee exactly where the stairs would be located as we needed to move an internal wall to accommodate the stairs. I wanted an exact measurement but they had to give a range until the stairs were in situ…and then they moved the stairs about to get the best fit. I wanted them to move the stairs across 140mm but that compromised the regulation 200cm head height under the stairs down to apx 195cm so I asked them to get approval from the building inspector; he approved.

Our builders were really hot on making sure that the build was compliant and right build wise, but not quite as customer focused – it needs to be both. In the example above, to meet regulations the stairs were ‘floating’ in the stairwell and looked wrong whereas I wanted them to sit flush with the existing stair wall. They did everything ‘build right’ but build right isn’t always ‘design/look right’.

We got 3 quotes and went with the one in the middle after going to see other work they had completed. In a perfect world we would have liked the highest price company to have done the work as their communication and client management seemed so much more polished, but they were nearly £8k more expensive so we decided that we would be prepared to be more involved for an £8k saving (the quality of work has been the same high end).

I would be happy to share our technical drawings with you if you wanted an idea on what we had done – email me directly through profile.

very much depends on the structural work required. There may be need for new joists, steel beams etc, which can easily add in over £10k, plus structural engineer fees and Building Warrant

We did a pitch to rear wall dormer/flat root type affair, 25k with me doing a lot of the donkey work, shifting blocks, insulating, boarding out etc, this was 5 years ago so quotes sound ballpark

doesn’t sound far off to me. we are mid way through an extension having originally looked at loft conversion and finding it would be impossible without trying to raise the roof line, a no no where we are with planning. So we extended instead.

Sounds very expensive.

We did one in London, a 2 bed victorian semi with a hipped roof, added a gable end, dormer and ensuite bedroom and office to the top.

All in I paid £35k in 2008, that was to a loft conversion company

I am currently doing a major renovation and extension of a different house and have found a local builder and his mate to do eveything. Its working out brilliantly, much better than a firm who bring in subbies to do the bricklaying, joinery, roofing etc etc. This way I can see a really quality job coming together. its taking about 20% longer this way though, but 10% cheaper also..

We had a loft conversion done at the beginning of the year (1910 Edwardian semi) and we’ve added about 49m2 including 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. Build cost was around £43k plus some extra for the bathroom fittings and installation.

Like with squin’s experience, we still had to stay on top of our builders to make sure stuff got done when we expected it to and to make decisions on the fly as the build progressed. Happy with the quality and finish of the work though and it’s added more value than it cost to build but more importantly provided a lot more living space.

I’m just in the final stages of finishing my own conversion, 2 x double bedrooms 1 x single, 1 x bathroom + another en-suite. The staircase is already in as the other half was already converted.
It is about 800 sqft and is on budget at £15000, the only part i haven’t done is the plastering, this price also includes an additional combi boiler.
It has been an epic ball ache, fitting 160mm celotex is i job i never want to repeat.
It will be worth it in the end hopefully, should add approx £65k to bungalow.
I would say it’s not a diy project for the faint of heart and some building knowledge goes a long way.
Although saying that £52k is a hell of a chunk of cash.

There are so many variables that can have a huge impact on the overall cost

That being said, it does feel a bit high, I would have guessed it to be more in the 35k-45k mark

We had ours done about 6 years ago and it was easily in that range, can’t remember exactly and we did lots of other bits too (e.g. paint and carpet the whole house)

Sounds about right..
I’d look into planning,tbh. It means you can have side windows, cladding etc etc

The cost will also vary depending on quality of fittings, wood etc (oak > pine) etc.

I’d be surprised if that didn’t add more that £50k to your house.

My tip would be.. Really think about where the stairs go.done right it can be awesome..done wrong and it’s a bit of a “oh, we need stairs somewhere” job…

We had a pokey little bungalow – with our conversion we’ve got 2 more bedrooms,a big bathroom..but the best bit is the stairs are in the middle of the house, with a huge full height vaulted ceiling in the hallway, making a really spacious and light space.
Others in the street have ‘hidden away’ stairs that just don’t have the “wow” factor…

DrP

Really appreciate all the responses here and actually I feel a bit better about the lower end of the quotes we’ve been given.

I think to some extent the high ish prices are being driven purely by demand – there’s a 9 month lead time on the work.

I guess you’re also paying for a relatively convenient one-stop service – in theory anyway – as these outfits have the trades people on their books. One company we spoke to even boasted that the blokes were house trained 🙂

Hats off to anyone having a go at this themselves, I can fix my bike and build a few shelves but don’t fancy taking this on, especially as I don’t have any skilled mates to call on if it all goes wrong.

I did this in 2012 in Bristol, also on a 30s end of terrace.

We got a big bedroom, small bathroom.

Cost £32k all in (not including decorating or the toilet, sink, electric shower though)

My brother is about to have one done on his 3-bed semi nr Byfleet, Surrey.
Several in the road have already had it done – it seems like the natural progression for these properties, once the kids start growing up.

His is costing him around £50k I think.