Building an Extension – Professionals You Need In 10 Easy Steps: Design review

Elevation design review

Step 2 The Design Review

As you have read in the introduction to Building an Extension we now need to get down to the nitty gritty and carryout a design review

This is where you will start with your quantity surveyor, your chosen architect will have prepared your drawings and will be waiting on your approval of those drawings to submit to the local authority to gain your planning permission.

At this stage it is all too easy to just approve the drawings and get the planning in so you can get onto starting your project, but the best thing to do now is stop!

How much will it cost?

Yes that’s right stop, do you know how much everything is going to cost?

Let’s now look at what will likely happen if you don’t get professional advice from your quantity surveyor at this critical stage

Your architect submits your drawings to the planning authority

You then wait a minimum of 3 months for a decision to come through

You get quotes from building contractors and the cost comes in 25% more than you have available to fund your project

As your plans have been submitted that’s it, no major changes without resubmitting and going through the waiting game of another 3 months plus the time taken to amend the plans and an update from the structural engineer, this will also come with additional fees from both architect and structural engineer.

We see this happen a lot and you can easily see 6-7 months lost from having to go through the process all over again and now you have even less money to spend on your project.

So, what do I do?

A quantity surveyor will review the drawings and provide advice on what the project is likely to cost, the best option is to get a detailed cost plan prepared which will give you a better understanding if the budget is going to be in line with your level of available funds

Next let’s look at Step 3 The cost plan