Can we stay at home during an extension?

A rear extension built largely from the garden is a different experience from a project that also replaces the kitchen, alters the staircase and rewires the ground floor. Make the decision against the actual programme, with your contractor, before work starts.

Think in phases, not in one moving-out decision

Ask the contractor to describe the project in terms of what your household will lose and regain. Useful milestones include the start of excavation, removal of the existing external wall, loss of the kitchen, interruptions to services, plastering and the point when rooms become usable again.

You may be able to live at home through some phases and stay elsewhere during others. That arrangement still needs planning: an open-ended promise to “go to family if it gets difficult” is less useful than an agreed fallback address and a clear trigger for using it.

Do not treat the programme as a guarantee. Ask which stages depend on weather, inspections, deliveries or discoveries in the existing house. Those dependencies determine how much flexibility temporary arrangements need.

Draw the boundary between home and site

On a copy of the floor plan, ask the contractor to mark the occupied rooms, work areas, contractor access, household access and routes out of the building. Repeat the exercise for the most disruptive phase.

The important question is whether the household can function without crossing the work area. Reaching the only toilet through a room being demolished is a fundamental problem, even if the bedrooms are untouched.

Separation needs to address dust, noise, access, security and fire safety. Its design belongs with the people responsible for planning and managing the work. A dust sheet across a doorway does not, by itself, establish safe separation. HSE guidance requires construction risks to people outside the workforce to be controlled, including children who may be attracted to a site. HSE: protecting the public during construction.

Discuss children, pets and any particular support needs at the outset. They affect the arrangements that will work in your home; they are not details to add after the site is established.

Check the five essentials for an ordinary weekday

Start with sleeping, washing, using the toilet, preparing food and getting in and out. For each one, identify a specific usable place and a safe route to it.

A temporary kitchen might be a sensible option, but it needs more thought than moving a kettle upstairs. Ask how you will obtain drinking water, wash utensils, refrigerate food and use suitable electrical appliances. The contractor and relevant trades should assess any temporary services. Do not improvise cooking arrangements in bedrooms or use outdoor cooking equipment indoors.

Then consider the tasks that make a week manageable: laundry, deliveries, school bags, medication storage, working from home and putting rubbish out. If your work depends on quiet calls, a closed bedroom door may not solve the problem when cutting or drilling begins below it.

Make two lists: what can be inconvenient for a short time, and what your household cannot reasonably go without. Give the second list to the contractor when discussing phasing.

Compare the total cost of staying and leaving

Temporary accommodation has a visible price. Staying can involve less obvious costs: temporary kitchen facilities, storage, additional cleaning, alternative workspace, more expensive meals and extra protective work.

Keeping rooms operational can also affect construction sequencing. Ask the contractor to explain whether occupied working changes the price or duration, and which assumptions sit behind the answer. It should be clear in the agreed scope who pays for temporary partitions, protection, temporary services and their removal.

Compare realistic options for your household. These might be staying throughout, leaving during the main internal alterations, or moving out for the whole project. Include the practical cost of moving twice, parking and travel, pet arrangements and the flexibility of any booking. The cheapest nightly rate is not necessarily the cheapest workable plan.

Agree how changes will reach you

Set a regular short conversation about the coming week. Ask for advance notice of service interruptions and changes to access, plus a named contact for urgent issues.

Keep a simple shared record with four headings: date, affected room or service, expected duration and household action. “Kitchen water off on Tuesday; drinking water and washing arrangements confirmed on Monday” is more useful than “plumbing next week”.

Decide what happens if a phase overruns. Who tells you? How soon? Can the temporary arrangement continue safely? Who needs to authorise a different construction sequence? These questions are easier to answer before everyone is tired.

Keep one room genuinely usable

If occupation is feasible, protect a place where the project does not dominate every evening. Avoid letting the last living room become overflow storage for new fittings, tools and boxed flooring. Arrange deliveries and storage with that limit in mind.

Tell your insurer about the proposed work and occupancy arrangements, and check any relevant mortgage or lease conditions. Describe the actual scope and duration, including any period when the property will be empty, so the response relates to your project.

The decision to stay should remain open to review. If safe access, essential facilities or agreed separation cannot be maintained, discuss different arrangements promptly. Persistence is not a substitute for a workable occupation plan.

When discussing your extension with CR Design Services, explain how you need to live during the build as well as how you want to live afterwards. That gives the design and construction planning a practical starting point. Discuss your project.

Guidance for homeowners in England. Reviewed 8 September 2026.