Extensions in Kettering, priced in writing before anything starts.
The first thing an extension in Kettering needs is an honest assessment of what the existing house will actually carry, because the town’s Victorian stock varies enormously in how it was built.
On the artisan terraces near the old factories, the original construction was economical. Foundations are shallow, walls are solid and often only nine inches, and the rear addition, if there is one, may be lighter still. That does not prevent a good extension, but it does mean the connection between old and new has to be designed rather than assumed, and the new foundation may well need to be deeper than the one it is joining.
On the larger houses built for the managers and owners the picture is different. Deeper foundations, better brick, more generous structure, and plots with room to build into. These take a substantial extension comfortably.
Since both were built within a few years of each other, and sometimes a few streets apart, the date on the deeds tells you very little. We dig a trial hole and look at the structure before pricing rather than working off a rate per square metre.
On the interwar and modern housing this is conventional work. A single storey rear extension of up to four metres on a detached house or three on a semi can fall within permitted development, and there is also the larger home extension route on unlisted property, up to eight metres or six by prior approval with neighbours notified. Our extensions work is set out in more detail there, including how the inspections fit around the build.
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 Kettering street to the next.
Where a skip stands on the road it is licensed by North Northamptonshire Council, which is also the authority deciding your application. On a larger plot with a drive no licence is needed at all, which takes both the fee and about a week of lead time out of the job.
Where the new foundation has to go deeper than the existing one it is adjoining, that is not a problem but it is a sequence: dig in short lengths, support as you go, and never open the full run alongside a shallow Victorian footing at once.
Two storey work needs permission far more often than people expect, and on the tighter terraced plots it also needs a careful look at a neighbour’s daylight. If we think an application will struggle we say so at the quotation stage.
Part of our wider building work in Kettering.
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.
