Northfield House Renovation

    Today the council planning officer came to inspect the site. He took a good look at where the extension was being proposed and took plenty of photographs. I asked if there were any potential issues or concerns and he did mention that the neighbours had been in contact. They were concerned about how the room above the garage would impact their light on the 1st floor room they have. According to our architect, there should be no problem as the extension falls outside the 45 degrees from their window. Now we have to wait and see what the council will decide.(Insert photos) While we've been waiting for the planning permission, its given us lots of time to think about windows, bi-folding doors and underfloor heating. With the extension the intention was always to install underfloor heating within a screed, as the walls will be well insulated. We were debating whether to extend the UFH throughout the entire ground floor and possible upper floors too. This would require the solid wa

So as we await for planning consent and quotes from builders, we thought it was good to use the time to start looking at the style of windows we would want installed. The intention is to replace all the single glazed windows with double glazing at some point but this will depend on the cost. The existing windows of the house are single glazed timber sliding sash, with Georgian bars in the upper half. Front Elevation  The rear windows are simple sliding sash with the ones on the ground floor having Georgian bars. Rear Elevation The extension will consist of 2 windows in the kitchen area, followed by another in the utility area. Then there is a small window for the small toilet and 2 windows above the garage (front and rear). There is also a single door from the utility into the garden and 2 sets of bi-folding doors. In total then we have over 30 windows. We would like to replace the existing windows with something similar that keeps the character of the property but sl

After having a few builders visit the property, we have received a couple of quotes. Our first quote from Builder A  was for £130k. This consisted of the entire extension with doors and windows, underfloor heating and all electrics, plumbing, carpentry and dry fitting of en-suite, cloakroom and kitchen. Basically everything in the extension except decorating. We were required to supply the kitchen and sanitary-ware. We then received a quote from Builder B for £120k for similar work. These are vast sums of money and having never been through such a major renovation project I wasn't sure if these quotes were good value or not. Speaking to a few friends who had work done recently, they advised to break up the work and use separate tradesmen rather than giving the entire project to one contractor. This would require more involvement from my part but could save a significant amount of money (which can then be used for the rest of the house). So I asked the builders to revise the

Now that we have decided on our design, our architect made the final adjustments and submitted the planning application. We have been told to expect that it can can take between 6-8 weeks so during this time we can invite some builders and get quotes on the work. I've been contacting a few suppliers of bi-folding doors to get an initial cost estimate. There are a large number of brands to choose from that vary in cost and quality. Schuco, Origin and Raynaers seem to be the high-end brands favoured by architects. Then you have AluK, Sapa Crown and Smart. After that there are a plethora of companies that provide their own branded products (although the aluminium frames may be sourced from a limited number of manufacturers) We have also invited a number of builders to give us quotes. At this stage it is very difficult to price the entire project as there are so many things concerning the existing property still undecided. We are facing a dilemma whether to take the existing prop