How to go about a renovation?

[malcolm]

I have planning permission to sympathetically convert a pub into a house. The great thing about doing it sympathetically (apart from the obvious preservation of old buildings thing) is that I don't need to change much. That suits my budget which isn't much either.

There are a few changes. This year a wall knocking down in the kitchen (nothing above it), fitting a kitchen, altering stairs, a new concrete floor in a small area at the bottom of the stairs. Later on a new floor for a new bedroom upstairs with an en-suite to replace a void formed when a double height room was fitted with a false ceiling, a new pitched roof over the ugly flat roof toilet block, and a new garage.

I've been a going around in circles since planning was approved. I don't yet have detailed drawings to allow a builder to quote. I hit upon the idea of paying an independent building regs inspector to check through what I have and there were a number of things that make me worry about employing my existing designer to do the detail drawings.

I could hire another architect but I don't want to go down the route of architect doing detail plans, employing a main contractor etc as I reckon that only works for rich people. I expect to be doing a lot of the work myself. I'm leaning towards drawing up detail plans myself, project managing myself, and employing trades directly. It'll not happen all at once - I'm hoping to do it bit by bit over the next few years.

How does everyone else go about this?

 

[88v8]

Other than a largeish extension at our previous house where I used an architect whose drawings we (local expensive building company and I) gaily ignored, I'd always done everything myself. The consequent kerfuffle over the lack of paperwork/permissions for various other things when we sold was irritating.

Here, I used an architect to draw the garage and obtain PP/LBC - mainly because I couldn't be bothered and have no patience with bearueaucracy - can't even be bothered to correct the spelling - and have enough money on a 'can't take it with you' basis to be cavalier about the costs of drawings - nearly £5k for the garage, and the abortive (failed LBC) effort at porch and conservatory.

The quotes to build the garage with a main contractor were so high - £50k+ from four firms including the Welsh builders I've used for various smaller jobs here - that I've ended up using a local chap & his labourer on dayworks, in the vague expectation that it will be cheaper. Also, crucially, because I reckon that otherwise there's a significant risk that I'll only get a vague approximation of what I want, and will constantly have to fight off modern methods and this-is-what-we-normally-use materials.

The trick will be to work out what materials we need, find them, get them in when needed, but not too early because we're very short of space. Otherwise my dayworkers will be twiddling their thumbs at my expense. Generally I've sort of bumbled through jobs, making things up as I go. Changing the habits of a lifetime is hard.

Ivor

 

[Zebra]

Generally I've sort of bumbled through jobs, making things up as I go.

Me too. I had a surveyor draw up the plans for the Planning Permission, but those don't go into a great amount of detail about how it actually gets built. Perhaps your builder won't need detailed drawings to put a quote together. I had my brother build my front extension, and he didn't need a drawing to know what to do, but I did have to be on site pretty much all the time, to make sure that everything got built in the right places. (Three other building firms "declined to tender" having seen it!)
As for all the rest of it, I have done as much of the work myself as I could, having certain trades in at various times but very much project managing it all myself. The thing is with old houses, they're full of surprises, and if you let a main contractor take over, then as soon as that beautiful old floor is discovered under the concrete, it'll be in the skip. Or you'll find that things are difficult and really require a lot of thought to work them out - which only you can give it - a builder will just find the easiest way, not the way that's best for the house.
From the list of jobs you describe, Malcolm, there sound like many that you could tackle yourself if you're up for it.
Knocking a wall down, fitting a kitchen, altering stairs, a new concrete floor, those could be tackled yourself if you've the time! Or at least, you could get it all ready so that the work the builder actually has to do is minimal and very specific.
Then you just have to choose the right people. I've had a professional roofer in, but he was very much in sympathy with using plain clay tiles, open eaves, all the things I wanted. I had professional renderers in, but I'd already chosen the stuff which was to go on the walls, and just needed their trowel skills to stick it on. Admittedly, with the front extension I did lose control - there were a few things which ended up in the wrong place, but there was nothing I could do about it, and there was one bit of old timber which he couldn't be bothered to work around, so ended up in the skip when I wasn't there. But if he'd been left in charge of the project overall it'd have cement render, injected dpc, all the things I didn't want.
So I'm a big fan of doing it yourself. Mind you, I have been three years in a freezing cold half-finished house without a proper bathroom or kitchen. But everything's getting done the way I want it!

 

[malcolm]

Thanks for the thoughts. I guess it's a lack of confidence on my part through having not done anything like this before. Though I am an engineer and very practical so it shouldn't be too difficult. A lot of the difficulty is from not knowing how things are normally done.

It would probably be worthwhile for me to engage a conservation architect for advice on insulation. I've got some 17c timber frame embedded in some of the walls in the corner of the kitchen.

I had a really good meeting with building regs who essentially said because of the conservation area I don't have to upgrade the whole place to current regs as would normally be required for a change of use, but that some sympathetic upgrading would be nice while I'm doing things. The building regs guy said he could steer me in the right direction for other bits and pieces.

Might be worth me drawing up detail plans for the kitchen and lobby myself and going for it.

 

[jackpoint]

Make sure your insurance is up together and have a go - I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. Bumbling along and making things up sounds like a perfect description

You will probably get as much good advice by asking on/reading this forum as you would from a conservation architect and save a few shekles in the process. There really is a wealth of information and experience here!

All the best with it

 

[plasticpigeon]

I've had to do a lot myself as I can't find tradespeople to either do what I want or work to a reasonable standard. I thought I would relish the opportunity to do so much myself but it is getting a bit tiring now, but is quite satisfying. My best advice would be make sure you stay in control and if you do get trades in, don't let them alter your vision, as suggestions are often made to make their life easier, not to improve the quality of the job.

 

[Zebra]

Absolutely agree with the two above comments. If you're not too sure, sometimes the thing is to get stuck in, and learn as you go!
Totally agree that you'll get as good advice on here as from a conservation architect. I paid £700 for a conservation architect to draw up a detailed spec, but I ignored 90% of it because I didn't agree with what he'd recommended, and ended up doing my own research, getting a lot of information from product suppliers like Old House Store, Ty Mawr, Lime Green, Thermafleece etc, and making up my own solution. Others may have more experience, but nobody knows your house like you do, and nobody cares about it like you do. Nobody spends as much time on site as you do, and nobody is prepared to put in the hours of research, trial and error, and nobody else is going to have to live with the consequences.
I have insulated a 17th century timber frame myself. I can think of at least two other forum members who have done the same thing but in different ways. I could point you in the direction of the threads where such subjects have been discussed in the past, if you like, to give you some ideas?

 

[malcolm]

It's true enough. I've got quite a exact idea about what I want. It probably is insulation that I'm most unsure about. Links would be excellent if you can find the threads easily.

I don't think I will be forced to add wall insulation but it makes sense if I can put a bit in without damaging the building for the walls that will have to be exposed. I suppose that will push me to sort the exterior wall and ground levels before doing the kitchen. Most of my place is solid brick from 1850ish with no damp course. I've only spotted 2 original looking timber framed walls with wattle and daub. They are both internal, and both have posts set in outside walls. There is also a 1920s timber frame Tudor revival wall.

I've been doing a bit of investigation today looking at a 1900 photo showing an 1850s extension that was replaced by the 1970s flat roof toilet block. Turns out rather a lot of the original building is still there, just hidden by render and a bush.

 

[Zebra]

Is it external wall insulation you're talking about, or internal? Is the timber exposed on the outside or the inside? Is there a render which you are hoping to remove?
This is a thread which I started, which talks about external wall insulation, and mentions three possible methods - the rigid foam insulation which middi refers to and which dans used, the hempcrete insulation which oxalto used, and the woodfibre boards method which I used.
http://periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12173
However, this might not be what you're looking for, and I don't know enough about your house to say whether this is what you should do, it just shows the variety of methods which might be employed in such a situation.
Here's another thread (another one of mine I'm afraid) which describes in more detail the process I went through with mine, as well as more opinions in favour of DIYing!
http://periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12968

 

[Penners]

I have planning permission to sympathetically convert a pub into a house. The great thing about doing it sympathetically (apart from the obvious preservation of old buildings thing) is that I don't need to change much.

If it were my home I wouldn't change anything at all. Leave all the pumps, optics, bottles, etc. exactly where they are, and you'll have the perfect home.

However, if you insist on living in a house instead of a pub ( ) there's absolutely no reason why you can't plan, draw and carry out many of the alterations yourself. When it comes to the drawings, I use a computer design package called Serif Drawplus. You can get a free, "starter" version of it, if you want to try it out:-

http://www.serif.com/freedownloads/

It looks daunting at first, but once you recognise that any 2D architectural plan is really only a combination of rectangles, ellipses and curves, it becomes very straightforward to prepare your own. If you find the starter version of Drawplus has insufficient capabilities for your needs, the full version doesn't cost a fortune.

 

[stuart45]

You could probably do it on a Building Notice, which saves you needing detailed plans, but would make it difficult for a contractor to bid on.

 

[Flyfisher]

I wish I'd done that for our kitchen extension now. £1200 for mostly boilerplate stuff . . . . less than the actual architect drawings and about the same for the structural calculations!

Still, it reminds me of that old joke about the MD of a complex chemical plant that had to be closed down due to a fault and was losing a small fortune every day. He called in an expert to fix it the problem and it was done within the hour and the plant back up and running. The MD was understandably delighted until he received the invoice for £10,000 whereupon he was absolutely livid and demanded a full breakdown of the costs involved.

The reply was:

Item 1 - Tapping faulty valve with a hammer to fix the fault: £10

Item 2 - Knowing which valve to tap: £9,990

 

[plasticpigeon]

Just out of interest, what did the structural calculations involve?? Were they really involved enough to warrant that price???

 

[Flyfisher]

I just checked the actual figures and I had slightly over-estimated the structural calcs cost (rounded to nearest £50):

Architect drawings: £900
Structural calcs £850
Building regs prep £1200
(not including the building control fees)

The structural calcs involved an on-site survey to assess the timber frame construction of the original house onto which the new roof would sit, so an assessment of the existing timbers was needed for the calcs, thus not a 'textbook' job. Also necessary, though more straightforward, was the specification of a lintel to span a 4m window and the sizes for the roof rafters including the support arrangements for three 2x2m (approx) rooflights.

My feeling is that for the work involved, I got good value from the architect and the structural engineer for the unique work required, but not so much for the building regs as it was mainly standard stuff and heavily referenced the other work. I could have had the architect prepare the building regs stuff, but I didn't do that because he was in Hertfordshire and I thought it best to have the building regs stuff done by someone local who had worked with the local council people in Norfolk. Perhaps this was a good decision but I'll never really know. I do know that I didn't have any problems, so perhaps it was money well spent.

 

[parkview094]

Not wishing to send this off on a tangent, but I'm left a little baffled by the cost of building regs...

We've been quoted similar figures to you (Flyfisher) although £1800 for the building regs diagams in our case. I understand this forms the basis of a spec to allow accurate quoting by builders, but isn't this just a case of transferring the numbers from the structural engineer's doc onto the plans already produced by the architect? Of all the various costs, I would have thought this would be one of the cheaper ones?

 

[fryups]

Just my view on fees/costs from my experience given that I think a lot of time people have an unrealistic understanding and expectation from the construction industry.

If you're using a proper contractor who holds all the required insurances, liability, employees staff correctly, pays his taxes AND does work to a high standard then yes, he is going to cost a lot of money, he also has to put other overheads and profit on his costs. Wither that means value for money, i don't know!? I'm sure if you do the work yourself then you can build a lot cheaper and occasionally to a similar or better standard, if you want someone else to build high quality for you then you will have to pay them well. Building is getting more expensive every year, one contractor told me he expects his costs to rise 10% this year alone!

Regards fees for professional work, again remember what the fee includes. Hopefully if your using an "architect" you checked they are registered with ARB and not some random calling themselves one? Remember their fees include x no. years of experience, professional liability insurance, a duty of care to the client that no plan drawer has to abide to, office overheads, training and profits on top after taxes, paye, employing staff etc. Same with the engineer, remember your asking them to be responsible and liable for the calculations, its not just the number of hours the work took, its the implications from doing that work.

Taking the £900 figure how much time does that give the architect to do the works for which they are then taking on a huge amount of liability? A rough breakdown = Say £900/£50 per hr(using rough rule that your hourly charge out rate is 3 times your salary) = 18 hours working time! Then you may understand why when you pay a small amount for professional work you don't get plans with every single detail thought out and resolved and maybe that the Architect hasn't poured their life into the project which represent a third of one weeks work! Saying that I would say the vast majority of architects I know care very deeply about their projects and are always trying to get the best for the client.

There is a very valid question at what scale of work do you need/want an Architect? I completely agree that under say £50k value of project then professional fees will be too much of your budget and it just isn't wise for either party as you wont get the detail you want and it will inevitably be alos maker for the architect, unless you only get architect up to planning stage?

As others on here mention, if you're prepared to put in the time researching for historic and conservation work on forums such as this then that is probably the best way for you to go for small works, unless you want to pay someone else to spend 40/50/100 hours researching for you!

Apologies for the small rant and if i've deviated from the topic a little bit!

 

[Flyfisher]

Not wishing to send this off on a tangent, but I'm left a little baffled by the cost of building regs...

We've been quoted similar figures to you (Flyfisher) although £1800 for the building regs diagams in our case. I understand this forms the basis of a spec to allow accurate quoting by builders, but isn't this just a case of transferring the numbers from the structural engineer's doc onto the plans already produced by the architect? Of all the various costs, I would have thought this would be one of the cheaper ones?

Our total costs for building regs were:
£1200 - preparation of drawings & document package
£252 - building control application fee
£372 - building control inspections fee

A total of £1824, so very similar to yours.

Incidentally, because our project was delayed by the formal LBC process, I did not proceed with the building regs work until formal consent and planning had been granted. Therefore, all my discussions with builders used the architect drawings as the basis of quotations and I was able to agree everything without any of the building regs documentation.


Regarding fryups' points, I have no problems with paying professional fees for professional work, especially when I could not have done the work myself, but the building regs diagrams were pretty much hand drawn versions of some of the architect CAD drawings and the text was clearly copied from standard requirements plus the structural calcs report I had obtained separately. I have no complaints about the actual document - it did the job as required - just that the cost seemed disproportionate compared to the obvious amount of work that had gone into the original architect drawings (approx 18 sheets) and the structural calcs. (hence my earlier joke).

I take the point about liability and professional indemnity insurance costs, but isn't that what building control is largely all about? I could have prepared the building regs documentation myself and building control would (should) have still been able to do their job, or point out where something had not been correctly specified for me to correct. In hindsight, I think that approach would have saved me a lot of money with no compromise to the project's end result

Of course, it's not an entirely fair comparison because I have not costed my time. I've read that a rough guide for project management costs would be 10% of the total project cost and if I worked out all time I've spent in managing and researching things then I doubt I'd even be in minimum wage territory! But that's the tradeoff we make in DIY isn't it - our time to save money, and it's not altogether surprising that we generally need more time than experienced professionals. But that doesn't mean the end result has to be compromised, which is (I think) the really important thing.

 

[Penners]

As FF observed a few posts higher up, when you pay a professional to do a job, you're paying not just for the work, but for the knowledge and experience that he/she brings to it.

It may only take a surgeon an hour so to remove your appendix, but it took him a number of years to learn how to do it without killing you.

 

[malcolm]

This has been a very useful thread for me. This years work is fairly straightforward and the independent building inspector seems happy to give me pointers so I'll do my own detail plans for that area now and get on with that kitchen.

That does mean figuring out everything else I might want to do in future years so I don't have to do anything twice. I'll start another thread about insulation once I've been through the building working out what all the walls are made from.

 

[Zebra]

so I don't have to do anything twice

Ah, forgot to mention also, that doing it all yourself and learning as you go means you have to do almost everything twice! :wink: