Our Design Process

Step 1 - Size, style and cost
Before our first meeting you should consider your brief and budget and the very real possibility of extra unforseeable costs.
To give you some idea of the possible cost of building an extension you could work out the new gross floor area in meters and then simply multiply this by £1375 + VAT at 20%. This price would take into account the cost of foundations to a depth of 1M, general plumbing and electrical works, external doors and windows and internal plastered walls and ceilings would be included. New bathrooms, kitchens, boilers, retaining walls, renewable energy sources driveways or patios would be in addition to these costs.

We encourage our customer to tear out pages from magazines or provide photographs or sketches to give us a flavour of the style interior or exterior they want to produce. The function of the new extension and rooms that make up this space should work well together but also blend into your existing home without too much fuss.
Our meeting has no real time limit although typically it does last up to two hours. We will provide you with all the information you need to understand the design process. We will also advise you of your duties and responsibilities under the Party Wall Act 1996.

Many of our customers are looking for an extra 3 or 4 meters on the back of their home for kitchen / dining room extensions and these can sometimes be submitted to the planning department as permitted development. There are a few basic requirements under permitted development and we can easily check these at this meeting.
At the end of our meeting we will provide you with the costs for each element of the design process. This will include our own fees, structural engineer, local authority planning and building control. The party wall element can also be provided by us. A few days after our meeting we will write to you detailing the scope of works, our fixed price quote and the staged payment system that we operate for our professional charges. We also now provide a simple design and build option. We can provide you with a fixed price quote for the entire design and construction of your extension, conversion or new build simplifying the whole process and fixing the costs. Terms & conditions apply.

 

Step 2 - Measured and photographic Surveys
Once our fixed price quote has been accepted, we will arrange a date to survey your property. At this meeting we will either take our standard 20% of the total fee for the drawings or if we are providing a design & build service 10% of the contract value.

 

Step 3 - Existing and proposed drawings
Our next meeting will be about 10days after the survey, where we will have the planning drawings to show you as a work in progress. During this meeting we may have a few design proposals for you to consider as well as the proposals we discussed at our initial first meeting. We would hope that the design layout and proposed elevations can be agreed during this meeting. We will arrange another meeting for about 5 working days time for the final planning drawings to be customer agreed and signed off.

 

Step 4 - Submit drawings to Planning Department
Sign off meeting with the customer ready to submit planning drawings and relevant forms and fees to the local authority for planning approval. At this meeting we take the next payment of 40% where we are providing only the architectural drawing service.

 

Step 5 - Planning approved or refused?
Once the planning drawings are returned to us we will immediately inform you of the decision. Where a refusal is received we will act on your behalf and negotiate with the planning department to achieve a successful outcome without compromising the design proposals wherever possible.
This additional work is not chargeable unless the design proposals are radically reformed and the revised scheme does not look anything like the original. The cost of submitting a revised householder planning application to the local authority is free at the time of this publication being written.

 

Step 6 - Prepare building regulations drawings
You are going to need these drawings to build your project. Building control is a division within the local authority monitoring construction propositions and site work, to ensure that the minimum acceptable legal requirements for construction are achieved. Primarily the areas covered are related to structure, fire safety, site preparation and resistance to moisture, resistance to passage of sound, ventilation, hygiene, drainage and waste disposal, heat producing appliances, protection from falling collision and impact, conservation of fuel and power, access and facilities for disabled people, glazing - safety in relation to impact, opening and cleaning and finally materials and workmanship. These 14 areas all come under the heading of approved documents supporting the Building Regulations. These are non-statutory publications supporting the building regulations prepared by the department for transport, local government and regions, approved by the secretary of state and issued by the stationary office.
We typically produce these drawings within 15 working days from your approval from planning being granted. The average cost currently for the local authority to check these drawings and approve them is £200 and it normally takes between 2 and 4 weeks. On submision of the building regulation drawings the next payment for 20% is due.

 

Step 7 -
At this stage the paper work we have received from the local authority including the approved drawings is handed to you and in return we receive our final payment of 20%.

 

Step 8 - Construction
We may already have set a date to start your building work for you if we are carrying out a design and build project. However if we are not we would be happy to provide you with a quote for the construction of your project. If you have a written quote for another contractor or builder we may be able to provide a competative quote for your project.

 

Room-by-Room Design & Build Service

Our price will include Planning & Building Regulations drawings, structural engineers fees, Local Authority fees and the construction costs but does not include the costs for the party wall certificate or any part thereof. Contact us today to receive a no obligation quote?
Once the design is planning and building control approved we will provide you with a schedule of works and our completion date, specification of works including electrical layout and plumbing layout and a final updated fixed quote for the completion of the work based on the approved drawings. In many cases cost savings can be found and past back to the customer thereby reduce your overall construction costs. You will retain 2% of the final payment for a period of 3months after completion. After this time we will revisit your home and fix all the parts of the work that come under the heading of snagging. We will provide your extension with a guarantee for the construction, workmanship, and quanity of materials for 10years. As explained above we will provide you with an initial cost of the entire project by working out the new floor area in square meters and multiplying this by £1,375. This is the figure we use to calculate all the services we provide under the design & build. Demolishion work is calculated on a job by job basis and the materials and type of construction. Asbestos materials are always removed by our approved and regulated specialist contractors.

 

Design & Build Example

Customer Brief
To build a ground floor rear extensionacross the back of the house and 3M deep which would provide great views of the garden and create a much larger family kitchen breakfast room within a budget of £30,000.

Designers Notes
Propoerty is mid terreced with no significant trees within 40M of the proposed extension, soil most likely clay, two drain covers visible, south facing rear aspect, good access through back garden to main road, ventilation bricks to existing property, proposed would meet requirements for permitted development, property is not in green belt or listed & never been extended to the rear.

The Design Proposals
We proposed a rear extension with a lean to roof and 3 large Velux windows situated in an interally vaulted roof with concrete tiles to match the existing. Externally the walls would be rendered smooth with a painted finish to the customers own specification. We proposed a large bi folding door across the entire width of the house. Internally we would relocate the kitchen to the opposite side of the new opened up room and build a breakfast bar.

The Design & Drawing Process
First meeting with our Design Director Andrew May
Property measured & photographic survey completed
Existing plans and elevation drawings produced on CAD
Proposed drawing agreed with customer and submitted to local authority
Building regulations drawing submitted to local authority
Structural engineers design & calculations submitted to local authority
Local Authority planning fees  
Local Authority building control plan charge fee              
Local Authority building control inspection fee
Proposed new electrical layout drawings                           
Proposed new plumbing & heating drawings                 
Proposed new kitchen design drawings
Specification of works
Schedule of works

The Building Work
Extension to be constructed in accordance with the approved local authority drawings and signed
off customer approved layout drawings. The customer bought a new Magnet kitchen through us and we were happy to pass on our discount of over 65% on the retail cost which was an extra and was not included in the design and build cost shown below.

 

OVERALL DESIGN & BUILD COST             £24,750

 

 

 

OUR SERVICES

Design & Build - Contact us for a free no obligation quote today
Many of our customers have asked if we can follow through with the construction. We therefore now offer a Turn Key service of design and build. We estimate the complete cost of the project and once planning permission is granted we will adjust the value of the project to suite the approved documents and the scope of works. Within the design and build price we will provide an electrical layout and plumbing & heating layout and indicate your prefered layouts of your kitchen design, bathroom fixtures & fittings. Everything, unless otherwise stated, is included in the price. We have trade accounts with many local and national building merchants and kitchen / bathroom suppliers as well. Our discounts with these companies is excellent and we are happy to pass on the savings to our customers.

 

Surveys
You will need to have your property surveyed and existing drawings produced for the purposes of any design or alteration you intend to submit for local authority approval. If you want to sell your home or install a new kitchen or bathroom you may need to submit drawings to building control or you may want to give potential purchasers a memorable information pack which we can alos produce.
We provide detailed measured & photographic surveys at a competative price of £60/hour.

Planning drawings
You can see from our portfolio of completed and current projects that we take a great deal of pride in what we do for our customers. Many of our past customers have come back to us time after time for advice on properties they are looking at buying or further extensions or to have a second opinion about work they have had done. The drawings we produce are of very high quality, easy to read, to scale and local authority approved. We are always happy to answer your questions or give our professional advise on design or building matters.
Once you have had the suvey completed by us you will need to have the existing drawings produced from the survey notes. You will see from the drawing cost at the top of this page our fees for this element. All the surveys we carry out and the drawings we produce from them are accurate to within +/- 20mm. We will provide you with the drawings within our standard seven working day turn around in pdf format to a scale of 1:100 or if you prefer, paper copies can be provided at an additional cost of £25 per copy.

 

Building Regulations Drawings
We can provide the sections and design detail drawings you need to gain local authority building control approval. These drawings describe with notes and detailed sections how the building work is to be carried out in order to comply with the building regulations. If you have complete confidence in your building contractor he may be able to construct your extension under a building notice. This is were a builder starts work without approved building control drawing. This is not something we would recommended to anyone. By having approved building control drawings you are less likely to end up with construction problems during the build. The cost for us to produce building control / building regulations drawings are detailed at the top of this page.We will provide you with the drawings within our standard seven working day turn around in pdf format to a scale of 1:100 or if you prefer, paper copies can be provided at an additional cost of £25 per copy. On small extensions the planning and building control drawings will be provided on an A0 size sheet of paper.

Specification of Works from £1600
This is a written document which describes in detail the materials and products to be used and installed in the construction of your local authority approved extension / conversion or new home. This document is very detailed an therefore can take a considerable time to finalise. Once completed though it forms the manual for the construction of your proposed building work. If the product stated in the specification does not match with the product on site then that product should not be there, its that simple.

 

Electrical Drawing Layouts from £25 per room
When you are planning any kind of development having a drawing that shows every last detail will save you money in the long run. When you are planning a new kitchen for example getting the right number of switch sockets and there exact positions on the wall above the worktop, behind the fridge or inside a cupboard really should be designed sooner rather than later. Design changes during any construction are expensive but in a kitchen where the cables need to be chased into the walls and then tiled or painted is often very messy and complicated and therefore very expensive. A simple layout showing location of sockets, switches lights and consumer units can be an invaluable tool and save you a lot of money and time during the construction.

 

Heating & Plumbing Drawing Layouts from £25 per room
As with electrical work, plumbing and heating is better carried out during the main construction. Alterations after completion or changes to the existing layout are often followed by an expensive invoice. We strongly recommend that any work for your heating and plumbing is worked out on paper first rather than left to the building contractor on site. Hiding ugly pipes with boxing in a room is not a great solution when you consider that pipes could be inserted into a floor or ceiling void if the designer is instructed to oversee these elements as well. Plumbing and electrical layout drawings can typically be produced as part of the whole design package or added not too much later than a few weeks before construction starts on site.

 

Kitchens & Bathroom Instalation
We have extensive experience of interior design, from individually styled bathroom and kitchen layouts to concept design and retail fit out solutions. We have trade accounts with Magnet and Howdens and have great discounts with both companies. We are happy to pass on the full discount to our customers in order to secure the fit out work. We typically have more than 25% discount with both Magnet and Howdens across the full range of their products and not just their kitchens or bathrooms. We work very hard to get you a cheaper quote for the same products than any written quote you may already have from our competitors. Just give us a call or send us an e-mail.

 

Party Wall Act 1996 from £800
- Prior to starting on site you should inform your neighbours by formal letter your intension to do one or more of the following things. Build on the common boundary, build within three meters of your neighbours house or build withing six meters of your neighbours house. Without your neighbours acceptance build work can not commence lawfully.

 

Site Supervision / Project Management £95 per hour
This comprises regular site visits to establish and ensure the building contractor is constructing the project in accordance with the approved documents. Sometimes, building contractors will use materials not specified as they may be on offer at the builders merchants or simply because of the cost differences. Some materials that do similar jobs are cheaper than others which is often to the detriment of the design. It may be to your advantage to have someone indipendent on your side that knows just as much as the contractor. Knowing what things typically cost and identifying where cost savings have been made by the contractor and not passed on to you the customer could save you thousands of pounds. If you completely trust your building contractor 100% to look after your budget and build to the drawings then you will not need our services.