Loft Conversions in Solihull, priced in writing before anything starts.
Solihull has some of the better lofts on our patch, because a great deal of the interwar and older housing was built with generous roofs on generous houses.
On that stock a conversion is frequently the best value space available, since the roof and the walls already exist. Head height still needs measuring rather than assuming, because floor build up and insulation take more out of a roof than people expect, but the odds here are better than average.
The post-war housing is trussed, which means the structure has to be reworked rather than simply strengthened. That is routine work and it is not the same job or the same price as opening up a cut roof, and anybody quoting the two identically has not been up there.
The planning position is what varies most. In the affected part of Olton the Article 4 direction means permission is required for most householder development, so a dormer that would be permitted development elsewhere is an application there. In the other conservation areas the ordinary reduced limits apply, and a dormer on the roof slope facing the road is not permitted development anywhere in any case.
The permitted development volume allowance is forty cubic metres on a terrace and fifty on a semi or detached house. Escape, fire separation and stair position are all Building Regulations matters. Our loft conversion page goes through the structural options.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our loft conversions page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Solihull street to the next.
On most Solihull plots a lift or crane can stand on your own ground, so steels that will not go up the stairs can come in through the roof without a road closure. That is a genuine saving over a town centre job elsewhere.
On a semi, where new floor beams bear onto a wall shared with a neighbour, the work is notifiable under the Party Wall Act and notice has to be served before anything starts. The notice periods are fixed.
Where a crane or lift needs to be sited, the position has to avoid protected root protection areas as well as overhead cables, and on a wooded Solihull plot that is a real constraint rather than a formality.
Part of our wider building work in Solihull.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
