11 Ways to Reduce the Cost of Your Extension in 2022

Brief 

With labour and material prices at a high, it’s never been more important to rein in the cost of your extension project. We ask the experts for their advice.

Insight

If you’re planning an extension for next year, you may be approaching it with some trepidation. Stories of builds grinding to a halt during lockdown last year, alongside labour shortages and price rises for construction materials during the last year mean that it’s fair to be cautious about how your budget is going to affected.

But, the likelihood is that you’re building an extension because you need that extra space, and with no clear signs of the end of many of these issues, you’ll need to learn to manage your costs more carefully rather than avoiding building at all.

With that in mind, we’ve pulled together a handful of great tips from self builders, builders, designers and architects to help you reduce the cost of your extension in 2022.

1. Stay Structure Savvy

Keeping your layout simple, and the size reasonable, can save you a lot money on an extension, especially when it comes to structural costs as sometimes these costs can increase disproportionately as the size increases.

Long or large extensions require additional structural support, involving the use of steel beams,” explains the team at Resi. “The bigger your extension, the bigger these beams become, and costs can quickly start to add up, adding thousands to your budget.”

2. Weigh up Moving Load-Bearing Walls

You also need to consider how you’re going to open up the rest of the house to the new extension, and if knocking down internal walls or external walls are absolutely necessary.

“Structural alterations to the existing property, such as knocking down walls, is going to add a lot of labour and cost to the build,” says Chris Carroll of All in One Design and Build Studio. “If you can design your extension so that it uses the existing doorway into the garden to be the new doorway into your kitchen extension, you’ll make huge savings on the costs of structural steels.”