My Blog About Home Improvement

Trends in home extensions in the UK

If you were to visit a typical moderately prosperous suburban estate, built perhaps in the 1930’s 50 years ago the chances are it would have changed little from when it was first constructed. Maybe there would be a few garages, where they were not part of the original, often a ramshackle collection of buildings often made from concrete panels or corrugated sheet materials. There would however be relatively few extensions as we think of them today. Move forward fifty years and most will have been altered significantly. Doors and windows will often have been changed (in many cases several times as different materials and styles come and go). In addition the majority will have some sort of extension and many of the earlier more basic garages will have been replaced by more elaborate matching structures. Admittedly fifty years having passed one would expect a certain amount of change but even looking at estates of twenty or thirty years old today there would still be a lot of alterations. Why are we increasingly keener to change our homes?

The generation who initially bought those new properties in the 1930’s had often come from crowded inner city accommodation so having your own bathroom, kitchen and possibly even a bedroom each seemed a world away form what they had previously known. By about the 1960’s quite a few would have changed hands and even for those that had not, people were gradually acquiring more goods. In the kitchen a fridge and washing machine were becoming common so it was beginning to feel a little cramped. The box room no longer seemed quite so roomy with childrens’ seemingly endless supply of toys. It was also the time when increasing numbers purchased their first car, although they had not reached the build quality when given the choice you might actually leave it outside, unless you wanted to watch it rust before your eyes and not be able to start on a winter morning.

The 1960’s therefore marked the beginning to any significant extent of extending homes. Extensions from this era were often more overtly additions to the building with flat roofs being extremely common and windows would often follow the popular style at the time rather than necessarily match the original building. Prefabricated extensions also became quite popular with walls often of concrete panels or timber and roofs of either corrugated plastic or a felt flat roof and often built as a ’sun lounge’.

As the 1970’s and 80’s moved on there became an increasing trend towards home extensions matching the existing building. There are several possible reasons for this:-

· Town Planning departments increasing influence on even fairly minor schemes.

· The prefabricated type of extension, particularly when used as a habitable room (as opposed to a conservatory or similar) became more complex to justify under building regulations with increasing requirements of insulation etc. and perhaps a more robust interpretation of them by some councils. Any savings in cost began to diminish.

· Finally and perhaps most importantly there was a realisation by householders that it was generally better to make the extension look a more integral part of the original building. This was partly driven by the increasing value of houses which at times has become a national obsession. The large scale sale of council houses also increased the number of owner occupiers who were often keen to individualise them, no doubt in part to show that they now owned the property.

Changes in building regulations in a couple of areas have also helped certain types of extension. The exemption of conservatories has made it potentially a quicker and easier form of extension (although it may still require planning approval, a point that is often forgotten http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permitted_development). This together with being another product for the expanding UPVC window industry and the introduction of polycarbonate roofing systems has made it one of the most common home improvements of the last few decades. Another important change in regulations was the removal of room height restrictions (other than above stairs). This has made a lot of loft conversions, particularly those with just roof lights viable which may not have been in the past and has become a very popular form of home extension, it is often more economical to build than an extension at ground level whilst often having less impact on the existing house and garden.

I suppose it was predictable that the next trend would be away from rigidly following the design of the existing building to an identity of its own. Often it incorporates elements that have been popular on some individual new houses such as large areas of glazing, white rendered walls and the use of timber externally. On the whole this is a more localised trend, it will often be more expensive to build, it perhaps requires more design skill for it to work successfully so is mainly seen in the more affluent parts of our major conurbations. Read the rest of this entry »