A house has come up that ticks more boxes that we thought possible in are area. It’s pretty goosed and in need of a complete refurbishment and extension. It priced to reflect this.

I’ve seen a few posts in the past were a rough cost per meter has been banded around.

Appreciate it would need to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt and chips and quality dependent.

Anyone care to share there costs? We are Huddersfield based if that helps.

Allow £1k to £1.5k per sqm for an extension.

Estimate the refurb costs then double to get to a reasonable figure. (ie, I could do the bathroom for £2k – it’ll end up costing £4k).

The house we moved out of a few years back – we had plans drawn up for a side extension. The architect gave us a very basic cost estimate of between £1000-£1200 a square metre before finishes – wildly optimistic. For a small two-storey side extension of approx 40square metres the builders quotes ranged from 60K to 140K. We sold it to a couple who did the work for a cost of approx 100K.

Southeast (Sussex).

That’s perfect, thanks.

woffle, is that 40sqm total up and down, or footprint of the extension on the ground?

I agree with johndoh.

To basic build out the ground single storey, walled, roofed, leccy, plumbing and pastering I’d say the £1k to £1.5k is about right. That wont include the painting, carpets and furnishing which will all add on more … but personally, I consider that a secondary worry. I’d rather spend my money to be sure I had a solid room before I worried about buying a carpet to put in it. The room will last longer than the carpet / decor.

As for the refurbishment, again, wholly agree with johndoh. If you buy a bathroom suite for £500, tiles for £500 etc and think ‘thats the bathroom cost covered’ then you’ll be surprised. All the add-ons add up. The adhesive for tiles, the plumbing connections, the sealants, the towel rail, the tile cutter, the daft little tile spacers, the lights. You regularly find yourself popping out to the local hardware store and coming back £30 to £50 lighter in pocket. Those trips quickly add up to hun’dreads’ of pounds.

I’m a believer that if you go into a house and get a good ‘feel’ for it and you have a gut feeling that ‘I want to be here’ then go for it.

Decor, crap wall paper, avacado toilet pans can all be changed. Look past them and see what i can be. Good luck.

£1200/m for the ground floor & £1000/m for upper floors + kitchen & bathroom costs on top.

My fag packet has quickly been filled with scribbles and silly pictures.

Are these costs per floor if i’m totting it up? Will be a 2 floor extension at the back.

EDIT: Ah, cheers Marin. Per floor.

Cheers Fisha – I guess that’s my having my last two houses experience (one total refurb + extension and one total modernisation) adding up to something tangible.

And just one room to go and I am sitting back and relaxing (until we need to start redecorating stuff we did 4 years ago next year)….

I would go £1500 – £2000/sqm, depending on level of finish, and then add 10% contingency.

Pricing an extension without spec can be like pricing a football player, a non league player could maybe do the job but as you go up the league table maybe do the same but better quality then there is the premier league. So many trades involved, steel work everywhere and not forgetting about Kingspan that can be quite pricy nowadays

Cheers redmex. This is more to see if we are just being silly or, if it could work. If the estimated cost is above budget we may just have to walk away now and save wasting any more time.

Plan to pop up tonight and measure up.

But of course bear in mind that if it is a really good property in a good location, you might be able to make it habitable and do the work over a longer period. We bought our current house 4 years ago (1980s build but the old couple had done nothing in that time) so every room needed renovating (ie, two bathrooms + cloakroom needed completely ripping out and starting from bare plaster, old heating system needed upgrading, rotting windows needed replacing, all carpets and curtains needed replacing, kitchen ripped out, remodelled, walls taken out, garden completely made-over etc). We have still got one room to do (lounge – we are ignoring the utility) + guttering and exterior wood panelling to replace because we have had to save for some bits rather than have a budget for everything up front (we borrowed a bit extra to do the initial work, then remortgaged to do the major job in the kitchen, now saving for last bits).

I’d err on the side of caution …
Though you can price the extension itself in bricks and mortar and then what you stick in it the big surprises potentially can be things like foundations…

You might be able to get an idea if surrounding houses have been extended… and if they are 1-2 story extensions… if they are mostly 1 you might start to wonder why…

Good shout stevextc.

Been through the living in a house while renovating before john. Not sure i’d want to do it again now we have kids. Re-Call the fun of 6 months with no shower or flushing toilet (went swimming in local baths every day, got very fit).

Costs vary hugely. The main factor in the trade at the moment is labour. It’s scarce as ****! Everyone who’s good is busy and charging (saving up while it’s good) top rates. Do as much as you can. And genuinely that is from someone who’s right in the middle of it. Good luck.
And as for the single/two storey extension that’s a little bit misleading really.

woffle, is that 40sqm total up and down, or footprint of the extension on the ground?

total footprint across two floors.

And as said ^^ (at least down here) the biggest issue is finding labour / a good builder who has space on their schedule. That and a shortage of bricks. Had a small wall built at the back of our drive and the builder had to travel some daft distance to find decent bricks…

£1.5k per m2 seems about right, we were quoted £42k for the workshop (4x8m), which is built to the same standards as a single storey house.

£1800/m2 for a single storey extension. East of England and built this year.

That was for the bricks and mortar and plastering.

Plumbing, electrics, glazing and decor were extra.

Do these ballpark quotes include a pitched tiled roof?

Do these ballpark quotes include a pitched tiled roof?

The price in my post does.