Loft Conversion FAQs

We're a lead service, not a building company. You tell us about your property — type of house, what you want the space for, and roughly when you'd like to start. We pass that to loft conversion specialists covering your postcode, and they contact you with quotes. There's no fee, no obligation, and nothing to buy. We don't carry out any of the work ourselves, and we don't make claims about the companies we pass enquiries to beyond the fact that they cover your area and do this type of work.

Most conversions in Ealing land between £42,000 and £70,000. Rooflight conversions start lower, around £22,000; mansards run higher, up to about £105,000. Checkatrade puts the Ealing average at just under £36,000 across all types — lower than those figures because it includes the simplest conversions. These are estimates, not quotes: the number depends on your roof, your access and what goes in the room.

Dormer, hip to gable, mansard and rooflight (often called Velux, after the window brand). Most people add a fifth: the L-shaped dormer, which is technically a dormer variant but different enough in shape, cost and the houses it suits to count separately.

Several, and it's better to know now. A loft without enough head height — there's no legal minimum, but you need 2 metres of headroom over the staircase, which works back to a rule of thumb of roughly 2.2 to 2.4 metres from ceiling joists to ridge. A roof built from modern W-shaped trussed rafters, which fill the space with structural timber that can't simply be cut away. A flat or maisonette, where permitted development rights don't apply and the roof space usually isn't yours. And occasionally a house where there's simply nowhere to land a compliant staircase.

Occasionally — a rooflight conversion, on a loft that already has the height, with no bathroom and a simple finish. Not for a dormer, hip to gable or mansard in West London. If someone quotes £20,000 for a dormer here, read the quote twice and check what's excluded.

Often not. Roof enlargements can be permitted development within a volume allowance of 40 cubic metres for a terrace or 50 for a semi or detached house, subject to conditions on height, materials, eaves and side windows. But roof enlargements are not permitted development in a conservation area, and Ealing has 30 of them — six of which also carry Article 4 directions restricting householder rights further. Check your address on the council's conservation area map before you commission anything.

It's a planning enforcement time limit, not a route around planning permission. Under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, in force from 25 April 2024, the old four-year limit for building work was replaced by a single ten-year limit for all breaches of planning control. Work substantially completed before that date keeps the four-year limit. Worth knowing: enforcement is rarely the real problem. Unauthorised work causes trouble at sale, at remortgage and with insurers long before a council notices — and a missing building regulations completion certificate isn't cured by time at all, because building control is a separate regime from planning.

Six to ten weeks on site for a typical dormer or hip to gable. Four to seven months in total, once quotes, design, party wall notices and any planning application are included. Party wall notices alone require at least two months before work starts, which is the deadline that most often holds up a start date.