Thinking of squeezing all the space out of your home you can by digging out that cellar to create a big basement area? Take architect - and presenter of The Home Show - George Clarke’s essential advice before you start.
Get a specialist in as fast as possible who are geniuses at creating basement conversions and making them work. They have structural engineers to tell you whether you can actually physically do it.
The cost of basement conversions can be absolutely enormous because of all the groundworks – so you really need to get the money sorted out right at the start.
Think about the disruption to your house – if you’re going to live there while they do the basement, it can be an absolute nightmare because they’ve got to literally dig out everything underneath, underpin, and rebuild.
Make sure you’ve got the proper insurances in place. There was a famous incident near me in London with a house that collapsed – I actually saw it fall down. I saw all the guys running out - they were underpinning the basement and they’d over-dug out and not propped the building up properly... and this £3 million house just sank, collapsed. They had to close the entire street because they thought there would be a gas leak.
If you go to a good, reputable basement conversion company, they’ll have the insurances in place anyway and provide all the services – you won’t have to worry about it.
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