Making structural changes to mid-terrace house - will the planners shoot me down?

seamus

So this is purely speculative, any work will be drafted by an architect and built by professionals; just looking for people's thoughts.

I have a terraced house built in the 1980s, but it's a bit unique. The house to my left is the end-of-terrace and the house to my right is stepped back and up by about a metre from mine.

The base house has an L-shaped kitchen at the back and the plan when we bought was to eventually "fill in" the L and make a nice extension, as many neighbours have done (except the guys to my left). No PP required, nice and easy.

But I'm thinking that if we're going to get heavy work done, move out for a few months, and have builders destroy the hallway walking in and out, we may as well maximise and do as much work as possible in a single go.

So at the moment I'm thinking in addition to the kitchen extension, that I could extend the whole house up and back to match the house to the right - so my roof would be taller and suitable for an attic conversion, and I'd have more room at the back, both upstairs and downstairs.

Obviously it's a massive piece of work that would be made much easier if the end-of-terrace neighbours wanted to extend their property too. But I'm thinking that if they're not into it I could go ahead and create a hip in the roof and the external wall between my property and theirs.

Is this an absolute pipe dream on my part? Would the planners tell us to go away, especially I was only modifying my house and not both houses?
Would the structural changes be ridiculously expensive for the amount of space we'd realistically be gaining?

TIA

Metric Tensor

Raising the ridge line is usually a No-No because it affects the street scape. Expanding to the rear is more possible.

Any chance of a quick sketch of what you have in mind for the roof? It's hard to get your head around it when you don't know the house and all you've got is a description in words.

seamus

A picture speaks a thousand words, though the quality may not be good enough. The first two pictures are the houses from the front. The third is the satellite view. You can see the neighbour's house is higher and set back from my own.

In effect what I want to do is raise the roof ridge and extend the house out the back to match the southern neighbour.

Hope that makes it clearer, though maybe not.

If it affects the street-scape, does it potentially help that the house backs onto another house that's 2m above it? So the neighbour behind would be unaffected as their house is way above mine.

Metric Tensor

I think you've got quite a tough uphill battle to raise the ridge line of the roof. Planning would be very difficult and you'd also have some tricky legal issues with regards to shared walls on both sides. It might be worth considering a large dormer projection from the rear of your existing roof. Not sure where you are but it's an approach that is quite common in Dublin. Even with this approach you may have issues with regards to overlooking the neighbours.

Bear in mind that what's possible from a planning point of view is not necessarily structurally possible at a reasonable level of cost. What is the current structure of the roof? Is it trusses?

Finally - if you make your house three storey there are some additional fire safety requirements that you have to apply to the lower floors and the "stair core"

Food for thought anyway.

Gumbo

These roof steps are usually in place due to level differences on site.
Raising the roof, I feel will,not get planning and then you have party wall, fire safety issues, weathering issues with neighbours that you be responsible for if things go wrong in the future.

seamus

Appreciate you guys taking the time to respond, definitely food for thought.

Calahonda52

seamus wrote: »

Would the structural changes be ridiculously expensive for the amount of space we'd realistically be gaining?

TIA

That question sums it all up and the answer is that it would be mad money to do it,
To compliment what has been said by MT and KC, there are serious boundary consent issues here which are covered, in part at least, by
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/27/enacted/en/print

I think you will find it very difficult to get the necessary works order for what you are gaining.
I know if I was representing either of the adjoining parties it just would not get consent!:)

Keep well and good luck