Planning An Extension To Your Home

Double duty: Why two storeys can be better than one in your extension

When you are planning an extension to your home it can be easy to want to play it safe. Surely, if you want to keep life simple, you want a single storey, and wouldn’t want to complicate the building work with anything more challenging like a loft? While this can seem like the best route in the short term, missing out on this opportunity could come back to haunt you in the long run.

Storage Options

Making your extension do double duty, with both a ground floor and a loft, can bring a host of benefits. For one thing, most obviously, it provides you with more storage space. Whatever your interests, it is normal in life to find you accumulate some items that have practical or sentimental value, but which do not have a place out in your home year-round. Having a little more space for these items can make it easier to find what you are looking for.

A hide-away loft

Alternatively, if you are extending a part of your home with a fairly high roof – as extension roofs cannot be higher than that of the building being extended – you can consider a different route. The two-storey extension can hold both a practical room on the ground floor and a small cosy room above.

Many people find their ground floor extension useful for purposes such as a utility room, allowing them to free up space in the rest of their home they are more comfortable in, or possibly a sunny reading and recreation room that gets the sun. But with simple planning for windows, easy access from the rest of the house, and furnishings, you can create a snug secondary living room or home office in the loft above your extension. This can allow your family more space to be free to pursue their interests.

Energy saving opportunities

As well as the chance to gain new living spaces in your own home, having two storeys for your extension can be a hugely effective aid to insulation. If you create and insulate a loft this can allow you to keep heat in this new extension far more easily than otherwise. Over the years you own the house you will have the satisfaction of knowing that your decision to add a loft is saving you money every day.

There are government schemes in place to subsidise the heavier costs of insulating your new loft. Similar support is offered for people interested in installing solar panels. Viewing your extension as the smart investment it is, it can be worth discussing this option early on in the planning process, to see if solar panel installation can be scheduled to happen at the end of the construction period. This can minimise disruptions to your life and allow your two-storey extension to start making you money right from the get-go.

So, is a two-storey extension for you? An extension like this can give you a handy new piece of storage space or allow you to create an extra work or living space, while saving you money and electricity.

If you’d like more information on this, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 0203 621 3938. From drawing up architectural design to applying for planning consent – our team can put in all of this preparatory legwork for your House Extensions Plan in London.