Kitchen
renovation
in St Albans, AL1
Designers, Architects, Engineers & Builders Under One Roof.
One Studio. One Contract. One Team.
In a St Albans house the kitchen often sits in the rear projection or the old back room, so a new one is as much about walls, drains and air as about cabinets. We plan all four together.
The city's Victorian streets set the starting point. The villas of Granville Road and Stanhope Road were built as middle-sized houses with rearward projections, Prospect Road ends in tightly knit terraces of workers' cottages on narrow plots, and Albert Street is still mostly two-storey mid-Victorian terraces. In houses like these the kitchen is long and narrow, and moving or widening it usually means taking out walls or a chimney breast.
Gas still matters to the layout: at the 2021 Census, 2,544 of Clarence ward's 3,180 households and 2,637 of Verulam's 3,098 heated their homes with mains gas alone, so a gas supply, a flue or a boiler is often already in or beside the kitchen when we arrive.
Sources: ONS / Nomis: Census 2021 TS046 central heating, ten St Albans city 2022 wards
Opening up a kitchen in a St Albans house
Removing the wall that divides a kitchen from a back room, or widening the opening into a rear projection, is a structural alteration, and the government's guidance is that you must check whether approval is needed before you change a building in certain ways. Building regulations approval is a different consent from planning permission; if in doubt, a building control body can advise.
Party walls come into it too. Taking a chimney out of a party wall, or cutting into the wall to take the bearing of a beam, needs notice to the neighbour, whereas plastering, new sockets and fixing wall cabinets do not.
Our structural engineer sizes any steel and its padstones from the survey, checks what the wall above actually carries, and details temporary props so that the opening can be formed in one controlled sequence.
Where the kitchen is to move into the rear projection of a late Victorian villa, we survey the projection's walls, floor and foundations separately, because the character statement describes those projections as built to provide a third bedroom, and a heavy kitchen with new drainage asks more of them.
Sources: GOV.UK: Building regulations approval - when you need approval; GOV.UK: Party walls and building work (printable guide); GOV.UK: The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 explanatory booklet; St Albans City and District Council: St Albans Conservation Area Character Statement, Granville Road and Stanhope Road (character area 7j)
Extract and cooker hoods in a refurbished kitchen
Under Approved Document F, refurbishing a kitchen means keeping or replacing any existing extract fans, cooker hoods that vent outside included. Where the room had no ventilation system before the work, the refurbished one need not gain one, unless the work would leave the house less compliant with the ventilation requirements than before.
A cooker hood needs to be at least as wide as the cooker beneath it, and a recirculating hood on its own does not meet Part F. Replacing an extractor or hood on the same cabling is not something building control has to be told about.
On older houses the route out matters as much as the fan. The council's window leaflet warns that trickle vents can spoil the appearance of otherwise well designed windows, and on Cunningham Avenue the Article 4 direction brings new flues, vent pipes and soil pipes under planning control.
So we decide the extract route at layout stage, through a rear wall, an internal duct or the roof, rather than leaving it to the installer once the cabinets are in.
Sources: GOV.UK: Approved Document F, Volume 1: Dwellings, 2021 edition; St Albans City and District Council: Repair or Replacement of Windows and Doors (guidance leaflet); St Albans City and District Council: Cunningham Avenue Article 4 Direction (leaflet)
Doors and windows to the garden on Article 4 streets
A new kitchen often wants a wider opening to the garden. On Cunningham Avenue the Article 4 direction makes new window or door openings, and glass in place of wooden door panels, matters for a planning application, while a replacement identical in design, material, frame colour and opening does not need one.
Around Sopwell Lane and Fishpool Street, two of the largest conservation areas with Article 4 directions, the council asks owners to think about repair before replacement and to keep the size and shape of original openings. On a listed building, altering a window or door will almost always need listed building consent.
Building regulations apply as well. New windows and external doors have been controlled since 2002, through approval or a registered installer, although an external door that is less than half glazed needs no approval.
Sources: St Albans City and District Council: Cunningham Avenue Article 4 Direction (leaflet); St Albans City and District Council: Repair or Replacement of Windows and Doors (guidance leaflet); GOV.UK: Building regulations approval (printable guide)
Circuits, gas and building control for a St Albans kitchen
A kitchen usually needs a new circuit for the oven or hob. That, like fitting a new consumer unit, is notifiable electrical work, which an electrician registered with a competent person scheme can certify, sparing you a separate application.
Our London team, in-house architects, designers and structural engineers working with Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy, takes on kitchen renovations in St Albans, single rooms included. Any application for an Article 4 or listed building change goes to St Albans City and District Council, and the structural and ventilation work is signed off by the St Albans and Watford shared building control service or a private registered building control approver.
We set up a temporary kitchen elsewhere in the house where you want one, strip out under dust screens, and fix cabinets only after the walls, floor levels and services have been checked against the setting-out drawing.
Outside St Albans, and in London rather than Hertfordshire: Project example: Primrose Hill, NW1. That project of ours gave a three-storey Regency terrace a bespoke handleless kitchen inside a new side-return infill and full-width rear extension, where a dark, narrow kitchen had been cut off from the garden, as its case study describes.
Sources: GOV.UK: Approved Document P: Electrical safety - dwellings, 2013 edition; GOV.UK: Building regulations approval - when you need approval; St Albans City and District Council: Building control (web page); GOV.UK: Building regulations approval (printable guide); Hampstead Renovations: Rear Extension & Kitchen, Primrose Hill NW1 case study
Kitchen Renovation in St Albans: Questions
Does opening up a kitchen in a St Albans house need building regulations approval?
Check before you start: the guidance is that approval may be needed whenever you change a building in certain ways, and a structural opening is one building control will want to see. The St Albans and Watford shared building control service or, alternatively, a private registered building control approver will confirm it, and our engineer's calculations go with the application. Where the opening touches a shared wall with the house next door, the neighbour needs notice too.
Do new kitchen windows or doors need permission in one of St Albans's conservation areas?
On an Article 4 street, such as Cunningham Avenue or much of the Fishpool Street area, new openings and replacements that are not identical in design, material, colour and opening generally need planning permission, and on a listed building consent will almost always be needed. Elsewhere, similar-looking replacements on a house are usually permitted development.
What ventilation does a new kitchen need under the building regulations?
Existing extract fans and outside-venting cooker hoods should be kept or replaced. If the room had none, nothing new is needed unless the work leaves the house less compliant than it was. A hood must be no narrower than the cooker it serves, and a recirculating hood alone does not satisfy Part F.
Do you take on a kitchen on its own in St Albans, or only whole-house projects?
Yes, a kitchen alone is a normal commission for us. It is surveyed, drawn, engineered, protected and signed off exactly as a bigger job would be, and in an older or listed house the design works around whatever historic fabric must be kept.
How do you scope and quote a kitchen renovation in St Albans?
We survey the room and the walls around it, confirm any structural, party wall and planning questions, and settle with you where the units and appliances go. The written scope then covers strip-out, structure, services, joinery and finishes item by item, and the quote follows it.
What happens at a feasibility visit about a St Albans kitchen?
We look at the walls you want to move, the route for extract and drainage, the gas and electrical supplies, and the doors and windows to the garden, and we check from the street for an Article 4 direction. Afterwards you receive a list of what needs consent and what we would survey next.
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