Builders in Ferndown

Building work in Ferndown

Bungalow extensions and alterations in Ferndown

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd builds single storey extensions, forms openings with a steel beam, lays brickwork and garden walls, insulates lofts, and plasters, renders and roofs the work, across Ferndown, West Parley and the BH22 villages. Thomas Hannen visits for free and gives you an itemised quote in writing.

Around four in ten homes in the middle of Ferndown are bungalows, and most of the town was built after the war, with the busiest years in the late 1960s. A bungalow on a good plot has two ways to grow: out at the back, or up into the roof. Both are covered below. At the visit Thomas also looks at the main roof, because a new extension roof tied into a covering near the end of its life tends to leak at the join. If it needs work, it goes on the quote as its own line so you can choose.

The build runs in order: foundations inspected, blockwork to plate height, the steel over any wide opening on padstones, roof framed and weathered, first fix, plaster, finish. The project gallery has a photograph of a brick extension with the roof going on. Around it we build garden walls and garages, plaster and render, lay drives with soakaways, top up loft insulation and fit kitchens.

Dorset Council, not BCP

Ferndown is in the Dorset Council area, not BCP, even though it sits next to the BCP area, so a planning application goes to Dorset Council. There is no conservation area over the town's housing (Hampreston's covers the separate hamlet), so a single storey rear extension within the permitted development limits usually needs no application. It still needs building regulations: a building notice or full plans, inspections, and a completion certificate at the end. On a semi, add a party wall notice.

For the roof alone, see the page for roofers in Ferndown.

Up into the roof

Loft conversions and dormers on Ferndown bungalows

A Ferndown bungalow loft can often become one or two rooms, but it depends on the headroom, how the roof is framed and where a stair can go. Thomas checks all three at the free site visit, before you pay anyone to draw it.

Measure from the top of a ceiling joist to the underside of the ridge. If there is not enough height to stand up in the middle of the room once a new floor and insulation are in, the roof has to change shape. On a hipped bungalow roof that usually means a hip-to-gable conversion, a rear dormer, or both. Many roofs from the late 1960s onward are built from trussed rafters, with timber webs criss-crossing the space. Those webs cannot simply be cut out. An engineer designs the replacement structure, usually new floor joists and a steel or timber beam to carry the rafters, and building control checks it.

Planning for a dormer

A rear dormer or a hip-to-gable change on a house is often permitted development. The limits in the householder permitted development rules are these: no more than 50 cubic metres of extra roof space on a detached or semi-detached house, nothing higher than the existing ridge, no dormer on a roof slope facing the road, and materials to match. There is no conservation area over the town's housing, so those rights apply on most Ferndown streets. Some estate houses had them removed by a condition when the houses were built, so we check the planning history of the house first.

Building regulations for the new room

The whole room needs building regulations approval. That covers the new floor and roof structure (Approved Document A), a safe escape route and mains-wired smoke alarms (Approved Document B), a stair with safe headroom (Approved Document K), insulation to the current standard in Approved Document L, and ventilation. If you only want the loft warmer and usable for storage, a top-up laid across the joists and a raised boarded platform is a much smaller job, and it is on the insulation page.