Anyone done their own loft conversion?

I live in a small-ish 2 bed mid terrace, and want to make a 3rd bedroom, the loft dimensions as it is are:
front to back = 8m
side to side = 4m
joists to roof apex = 2.8m
Had one quote at £30K+ and one at £20K, I realise you pay for expertise, building regs knowledge and all that, but surely it should be possible to do it at a fraction of those costs?

I did my old bungalow years ago. you need some good plans and a talk to the building control officer. All new roof alterations now require a hefty lump of girder spanning the supporting walls. this means crane hire and loads of muscle = £££s

Had one quote at £30K+ and one at £20K, I realise you pay for expertise, building regs knowledge and all that, but surely it should be possible to do it at a fraction of those costs?

What is the breakdown of costs in the quotes – and from that you’ll be able to work out whether you could do it for less. I’d also be concerned of such a variation between the quotes; get another one.

My house is pretty much the same as yours. I’ve been looking into it recently and reckon I could do it myself to a very high standard with dormers front and rear, 2 beds, one with ensuite for about 10k.
I am in the trades though and can do pretty much all the work myself.

There is some pretty strict laws with regards to loft conversions now last builder i spoke to doing 1 said they have gone overboard on the reg’s up there now.

Whather or not you do it yourself if headroom near the eves in the loft is an issue but you have high ceilings in the bedrooms think about lowering the bedroom ceilings.

Had a conversion done a good few years ago. We needed new loft joists (to support the weight) so had the ceiling height in the bedrooms reduced to increase the headroom in the loft. Made a huge difference to the usability of the loft but only added marginally to the cost of the build. From memory about an extra £1K in a build cost of £16K ish. Obviously have to factor in redecorating the bedrooms/bathroom and all the mess of taking down ceilings but in our case was well worth it.

Yes you could probably get it for £20k if you did a bit yourself. You’ll need about £750 for a

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

though.

🙂

I know a good one……

Do you NEED it to be a bedroom?

We needed extra space but didn’t want to pay ~25k so instead we got in folk to convert it into a “computer room”.

Insulated, floored, plastered walls with eaves storage cupboards, lighting, plug points, network point, 2 Velux windows, access via loft hatch with folding stairs.

Think we paid about £3.5k all in. No building regs or planning permission required since it’s “not a room”.

Obviously if you do it cheap you’ll be able to ignore Party Wall agreements as well.
Have you actually decided what you want? I assume that you’ve asked the 2 firms to quote for the same thing and not just phoned them up and said “errr…. we’d like a loft extension, how much is it?”

Thinking of doing a conversion as well. Looked into doing it myself, and whilst there was a saving to be made a) there is a lot of materials to be humped up to roof level, so you will need help to do this and install it and b) everyone I’ve spoken too says that it will take 6-8 weeks from the scaffolding going up to the builders walking away. If I did it DIY, I simply couldn’t do it as quick, and minimising the time/mess/disruption is very appealing.

You can keep costs down by getting someone in to manage planning and doing the roofing and getting it to a first-fix level of completeness. Once it’s water tight you can go at your own pace and fit it out DIY.

EDIT: I found this website quite helpful for describing the rewards and pitfalls of the DIY route.

http://www.internode.co.uk/loft/index.htm

We start ours in 2 weeks. Live in a similar sounding house, 2 bed victorian mid terrace.

After a couple of quotes ranging from 20-23K we have settled on a builder doing all the structural work, two floor beams, ridge beam, floor, rafters, stud walls, stairs etc. and I’m going to finish off doing insulation, plasterboarding, electrics, plumbing, etc. Works out a fair bit cheaper (on paper), might be worth an option if your are confident diy.

we have had plans done by architect (including ground floor extension) and structural engineer calcs, all signed off by building control.

If it all goes horribly wrong expect to see my posts on here whinging about it!

I converted the eves space next to my flat – similar to doing a loft conversion

I paid a building company to do all the structural and roof work – as they would have insurance as much as anything else. I then did all the interior myself apart from the plastering.

this was ten years ago. I ended up with two rooms and a large cupboard in a triangular space 9m x 4 m. Cost to me was around £7000 plus around £10 000 worth of my labour. This included fitting a new kitchen

Thanks for all the advice, I’ve got the structural engineer sorted (family), I’m more than capable of doing the majority of the work and have access to a trade account at my local timber merchant, which should keep the cost down a bit on materials. I’ll just have to get a sparky and a plasterer in if all goes well!
Keep yer fingers crossed!!