Loft Conversions in Banbury, priced in writing before anything starts.
Loft conversions in the Banbury area divide between stone buildings, where the structure needs careful thought, and estate housing, where it is routine.
On an older stone property the gable walls are frequently thick, rubble cored rather than solid through, and not designed to have large openings cut into them. That matters for a dormer or a gable window, because forming an opening in a rubble filled wall is a different operation from forming one in brickwork and it needs proper support and proper sequencing rather than a quick lintel.
Head height is the other question on older cottages, and it is often the answer that ends the conversation. These buildings were not generous vertically, and a steep looking roof can still leave you short of two metres along the walking line once the floor build up and insulation are in. We measure at the quotation rather than after.
On the estate housing the roofs are trussed, which means the structure gets reworked rather than strengthened. Routine work for us, and not the same job or the same price as a cut roof.
The permitted development volume allowance is forty cubic metres on a terrace and fifty on a semi or detached house. A dormer facing the road is not permitted development anywhere, and in a stone village conservation area anything that alters a roofline the lane can see will be examined closely. Our loft conversion page goes through the structural options and the order the work happens in.
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 Cherwell District 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 Banbury street to the next.
Roof coverings on the older buildings here are frequently stone slate or clay tile rather than modern concrete, and stripping and reinstating those requires care and a sorting area. Broken stone slate cannot simply be replaced from a merchant, so we set aside and reuse rather than skip and reorder.
Where new floor beams bear onto a shared wall the work is notifiable under the Party Wall Act, and the notice periods are fixed. In a village terrace that applies more often than people expect.
Steels that will not go up the stairs come in through the roof, needing a lift and, on a narrow village lane, a road closure arranged with the county in advance.
Part of our wider building work in Banbury.
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.
