Living in house during extension

We are thinking of extending the kitchen/dining but will stay in the house during the build. Have been told it could take up to 12 weeks.

Reasons not to move: money, scarcity of rentals, total lack of short-term rentals, proximity to school.
Downsides: noise, heat loss, dust all over the house.

Any tips on how to minimise disruption? The kitchen will probably be out of action for most of the duration so we might move a fridge and stove into another room. There are two unaffected downstairs rooms.

No doubt this is going to be a nightmare for us and for the builder but I wonder how tightly the builder can programme/schedule the works.

For example, would he know in advance that week 7 & 8 will be very quiet while he waits for windows to be delivered. But that weeks 4 & 5 will be a warzone and we should move in with the in-laws. Or is it a bit more week-to-week than that?

Cuddlesworth

How old are your children?

Older than 1, younger than 8

Carawaystick

Neighbours did this recently, with 4 kids in the same age range and only 1 other downstairs room. Bit of a struggle, but managed.

nompere

We did it a few months ago. There's just two of us, plus a dog. I was at work 5 days a week, and my partner was here all the time. It was much, much harder for her than me. The relationship survived the experience, but it was touch and go.

Scheduling is very hard - it only takes one supplier to miss a date, and the timetable starts getting skewed.

And it takes much longer than the optimistic estimates that are given at the beginning. Who knows what will be discovered under the floor when that's lifted? We had quite a lot of unscheduled plumbing to be done at that point.

I was advised at the outset to expect it to take twice as long as estimated and cost twice as much. You might be able to prevent the second leg of that applying if you have a watertight agreement with the builder, but the first part was certainly true.

We love the completed job!

We did it when kids were 3 and 9. Was a struggle, but we managed. The worst part was when the new door was being broken through. We still had the old kitchen/bathroom, though, which made things a bit easier. We weren't using any of the old fittings.

sunnysoutheast

Is it possible to physically partition off the area of the works with all contractor access from outside? If not you may run into practical issues with liability/H&S etc. If you can do this then it's also a useful dust barrier and slightly improves security.

Might be worth moving this to the construction and planning forum?

cat123456

We considered doing something similar. It turns out we won't be extending for another year or so. We asked our builder and he said it really slows work down trying to tidy up at the end of each day. There will be dust on every inch of the house and it could get tricky when power/water is turned off. I think you really need to weigh this up before you decide to stay in the house. Do you have any family members that might put you up during the time the work is being done? Nothing ever happens on time with this type of work

borderlinemeath

We did this during the summer and it was tough going. But made easier by the fact that it was summertime and we didn't need to worry about heat loss. Our kitchen was out of action for about 3/4 weeks and this was the toughest bit. Even though we used microwave/bbq, the lack of hob and oven is a pain.

Another thing to factor in (particularly with kids) is clothes washing. We have our washing machine and tumble dryer plumbed in an outhouse, but if you don't have an option for washing clothes for a period of time it could be a nightmare.

Gumbo

Get the builder to sheet out a temp hoarding separating the new works and the existing house.
Move your fridge and cooker to the existing house area.
Also disconnect the water and flexi pipe it with an outside tap through the hoarding to the existing house so you have clean running water for tea, washing machine etc

any doors that are remaining sheet them out in visqueen, or some sort of membrane to prevent dust passing through, it still will, but you just have to try limit it.

We done all the above except for the cooker as its gas, so we used camping rings that use the disposable gas bottles, worked a treat.

the_syco

Deleted User wrote: »

We are thinking of extending the kitchen/dining but will stay in the house during the build. Have been told it could take up to 12 weeks.

Start it in spring, to lessen the chance of it snowing. It snows, they can't do much, and you'll be freezing.

Also, if costs increase near the end, you may be tempted to throw money at the builder just to get things fixed; ensure you give him money in stages so that you retain some control over the speed of the extension.

Deleted User wrote: »

Any tips on how to minimise disruption?

Seal off the back of the house, using plastic over the door, with tape and towels to block loss of heat/wind getting in.

Store anything valuable in the house, as until the outside bits are sorted, there'll be an open door leading into your house for a few weeks.

Deleted User wrote: »

No doubt this is going to be a nightmare for us and for the builder but I wonder how tightly the builder can programme/schedule the works.

No. Just a nightmare for you.

Deleted User wrote: »

For example, would he know in advance that week 7 & 8 will be very quiet while he waits for windows to be delivered. But that weeks 4 & 5 will be a warzone and we should move in with the in-laws. Or is it a bit more week-to-week than that?

If there are "quite weeks" whilst they wait for stuff, they're not being efficient.

April 73

We did it in Oct/Nov 3 years ago. I look back at the photos & hardly believed what we lived through but we managed fine.

You need to take a deep breath & live with the dust & disruption & forget trying to keep the house tidy & clean while it's going on.

Ask the builder to do the max possible outside before he breaks through the wall to the inside.

Be very careful about scheduling a new kitchen. We managed to keep it down to only 6 days without a working kitchen. We managed with the help of good neighbours & a local chipper & restaurant.

My neighbour did a similar extension 6 months later in the summer & was at home every day. She nearly lost her mind! It all depends on your mental attitude to an extent. Staying there is do-able though.

Thanks everyone. I think we're at just about the right level of terror and dread! It will be a nightmare but a once-in-a-lifetime nightmare. Plan is to start in 'spring' in the hope that we get most of the summer out of it.

Some good tips there which I will definitely take to the builder. We have an architect involved so, to some extent, he should help us work out the best possible plan with the builder. He said to expect the builder to want to partition off the kitchen/dining room, making these no-go areas for most of the project.

The architect said there can be some quiet periods while the builder is waiting for windows etc. (most of the companies won't make the windows until the hole is cut/built and they prefer to measure this themselves, apparently). Will see what happens when the builder comes with a programme.

I'll report back when it's all done!

April 73

Just don't assume it's a once in a lifetime project. Lol. We did it in 2012, moved house this year & are planning to do it all again next year. Mad!