Extending your existing home is the perfect way to increase its value and give yourself more living space. Instead of selling your home and searching for a bigger one – which is both stressful and time-consuming – you can extend the one you have. Extending is becoming a highly popular choice for homeowners who are avoiding the volatile housing market. But you need to prepare for building an extension.
If you are thinking of building an extension on your home, it’s time to start preparing now! Extensions can be quite difficult to navigate when you are living on the property during the work. If you are looking for land preparation advice, visit thesurveyhouse.co.uk for more!
Otherwise, here are three ways to prepare for an extension!
1. Preparing small kids and pets for the construction work.
If you have young children or pets, your extension can be quite a risky time for them. Unsupervised, children, dogs or cats could wander into the building work and potentially injure themselves with equipment or machinery. For this reason, as the homeowner, you need to prepare for this by implementing a system that doesn’t allow this to happen.
This could be by blocking off the extension area physically to make sure that even if the pet or child is not supervised, they won’t be able to access the dangerous area.
2. Coronavirus testing and mask rules.
In the age of a global pandemic, it can’t be ignored that having non-family members in your proximity is a risk. Both for you and the construction workers, it is crucial to have regular coronavirus tests to make sure that if someone in the household or crew does contract the virus, all can be isolated accordingly.
In addition, you should impose a mask wearing rule for everyone who is onsite, including the family. By having this rule in place, you can reduce the risk of transmission drastically, ensuring you are taking all necessary precautions to avoid potentially deadly virus transmission.
3. Create a backup plan for your accommodation.
Extensions affect the whole household, even if the construction work is only occurring in one area of the house. Much of your home will be open to the air, which in cold weather can make the home freezing even with the heating switched on.
Additionally, the hazards the extension causes, as well as the risk of coronavirus transmission, mean that some families opt to move into temporary, rented accommodation during the extension building process.
While this isn’t always Plan A for your family, it is good to have a backup plan when it comes to accommodation. Even if you think you can handle it, issues that arise during the building work can take their toll on your routine, working life and family dynamic.
Even if there are just a few days where the work is going to be the most intense, you could opt to stay in a hotel or AirBnB for this period.
Final Thoughts
If you are searching for ways to prepare for your extension build, use this blog as your starting point for creating a plan!
*This is a collaborative post