Extensions in Corby, priced in writing before anything starts.
Corby is one of the better towns on our patch to extend a house in, and it is worth explaining why rather than pretending every job everywhere is equally hard.
The estates were laid out with space. Plots are generally generous, side access is normal, and there is usually room on the drive for a skip and a mixer. Most of the housing is neither listed nor in a conservation area, so permitted development is frequently available, and the plot depth means the full allowance can often actually be used rather than being theoretical.
The one thing that does need checking carefully is what the house is built of. The post-war building programme here produced a range of construction types, including non-traditional and system built houses, and those behave differently when you form an opening in a wall or tie a new structure into an existing one. A rendered elevation tells you nothing on its own. We establish the type at survey, because the structural approach and therefore the price depend on it entirely.
Estate covenants are the other item worth raising early. They are a private legal matter rather than a planning one, and planning permission does not override them, so a quick look at your title before design work starts occasionally saves a great deal.
In the surrounding stone villages the position is quite different, with conservation area designations and older, softer fabric that needs a different approach entirely.
Our extensions work is set out in more detail there, including the stages of a build and how the Building Control inspections fit around them.
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 North Northamptonshire 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 extensions page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Corby street to the next.
On most Corby plots there is no need for a skip licence at all, because there is somewhere on your own ground to stand it. Where there is not, the licence comes from North Northamptonshire Council, which is also the authority deciding your application.
Because a machine can usually reach the rear of the plot, groundworks here cost less than the same work behind a terrace elsewhere. We price what the access actually allows rather than applying a standard rate.
Two storey work still needs permission more often than people expect, and on an estate where houses face each other across a road the daylight question is worth checking early. If we think an application will struggle, we say so at the quotation stage.
Part of our wider building work in Corby.
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.
