Re: Adding 2nd Storey to Bungalow - Cost?

message from Brian S Gray on 09 May 2004

I would not be surprised if the foundations were not up to
standard but that is not necessarily the whole story for BCO's.
In this area of Cheshire, sometime around 1960 ( I do not know
exactly when) it became a requirement that the foundations for single
storey parts of larger houses (and probably for bungalows) had to be
adequate to take a second storey .
In 1964 I bought a new house and about 1972 decided to build
extra bedrooms on top of the garage and single storey half of the
kitchen. Being a suspicious character, I borrowed a sledge hammer and
dug a hole in a concrete path and examined the foundations of the
single storey section of the house.which were about a metre down in
sand. I found that the walls of the trench had partially collapsed
before the concrete for the footings was poured and the latter had a
triangular section instead of rectangular.
The council whose BCO came to discuss the permissible
extension design was the council which had been responsible for
supervising construction! The officer involved in my discussions
suddenly became very interested in lightweight extensions after being
dead against them before he looked in my holes.
The long and the short of it was that I had the foundations
improved and built a conventional brick extension.
Finally, in this area I think there is a blanket ban on
demolition of a small house and rebuilding as a larger house. Check
with your council. How much you can leave behind and then build on a
large extension is another, and often contentious, matter!

Steve replied to Brian S Gray on 9 May 2004

I believe this to be the case in Bolton, particularly in this are of Bolton
where a lot of old houses have been demolished to make way for larger
houses/flats,

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