Kitchen
renovation
in Muswell Hill, N10
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A Muswell Hill kitchen is often the back room of a narrow terrace or a room over a parade shop, and each starts with the wall that holds up the house and the route the steam will take.
Joining a kitchen to the room beside it, or opening it into a new extension, means carrying the wall above, normally on a pair of new beams with padstones beneath their ends.
We map the structure, the waste and the extract route at the survey, and only then lay out cabinets and appliances.
Source: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Structural Opening
Where the kitchen sits in an Edwardian house
Most of the north-eastern terraces were built as family houses with narrow fronts and long gardens, which puts the kitchen at the back, behind the main rooms.
The usual question is whether to join the back room to the kitchen, and how far to open the house to the garden.
We sketch two or three layouts on the plan of the house as it is, with the stair and chimney breasts in place, before any wall is moved.
Source: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Beams, padstones and fire protection
The Planning Portal expects each beam over a new opening normally to bear at least 150mm onto the masonry at either end.
Steel beams are normally protected against fire, most commonly by layers of fixed plasterboard.
Our engineer sizes the steel from the loads above, and the beam is often set into the ceiling so no downstand shows.
Source: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Structural Opening
Taking out a chimney breast
Removing an internal chimney breast needs no planning permission, as it does not change the outside of the house.
Because the breast is part of the structure, building regulations approval is always required, backed by an engineer's calculations for whatever is left above.
Where the stack above stays in use by a neighbour, we keep its support and ventilation intact and agree the work with them.
Source: Planning Portal Interactive House: Do I need permission to remove chimney breasts?
Extraction without a vent on the front
Any new kitchen should have extract ventilation to remove steam and smells, the Planning Portal says.
Haringey's conservation-area rules treat a flue or vent on the main front of a house, or on a side wall facing the road, as development needing permission.
So we route ducts to the back or up through the house, and position the cooker hood where the duct run is shortest.
Sources: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Ventilation, Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas)
Kitchens in flats above the parades
Above the Broadway shops, the flats share street doors placed between the shop windows.
On Fortis Green Road the flats over Nos 124 to 222 are reached through arched entrances under the paired bays, one for every two shops.
Depending on its terms, a lease may call for the landlord's written consent to alterations that planning and building control have already approved.
A parade kitchen needs its waste and extract routes agreed with the building owner before a layout is fixed.
Sources: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008), LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Kitchens in the inter-war houses
Some Muswell Hill houses are later than the Edwardian core: Nos 80 to 102 Dukes Avenue went up in the 1920s or 1930s, rendered in roughcast with curved full-height bays.
If the kitchen and dining room are still separate, the wall between them is usually the first one a family asks us to take out.
We check whether that wall carries the floor above before planning an open room.
Source: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Opening the back of the house to the garden
Haringey's policy text rules out full-width rear additions in the normal course, keeping them below the ridge.
Inside a conservation area, a single-storey addition reaching more than 3 metres from the back wall, or 4 metres on a detached house, requires an application.
A side-return kitchen often gives the space a family wants while keeping the garden and the neighbours' light.
Sources: Haringey Council: Development Management DPD (Haringey Local Plan, adopted July 2017), Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas)
Windows and back doors
Haringey lets a householder outside an Article 4 area replace windows and doors without an application, provided the replacements look like the originals and are made of similar materials.
Its energy guidance favours secondary glazing over replacement, and treats slim double-glazed timber matching the old pattern as a possible alternative.
Where a back window becomes a door to the garden, we copy the glazing bars of the sashes above so the back still matches.
Sources: Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas), Haringey Council: Energy efficiency in conservation areas
Floors, walls and lime
Older houses are porous and naturally ventilated, with lime plasters and mortars, and Haringey asks that changes do not harm how they handle moisture.
For floors and inside faces of external walls, Haringey welcomes insulation that leaves the old fabric unharmed.
Under a new kitchen floor we check the old suspended timbers and the air bricks, and keep the void ventilated.
Source: Haringey Council: Energy efficiency in conservation areas
Waste pipes and the sewer
Sewer flooding has happened in Muswell Hill before, according to Haringey's records.
Building close to an existing drain or sewer brings in Approved Document H's building-over-sewers provisions.
We fit the new sink waste into the existing drain at a gentle fall, with access for rodding.
Sources: Haringey Council: Development Management DPD (Haringey Local Plan, adopted July 2017), GOV.UK: Approved Document H, Drainage and waste disposal (2015 edition)
Cabinets made for the room
Our workshop builds each run of units to the room's survey, with end panels shaped to the old plaster rather than filled with strips.
Larder cupboards fit the alcoves, and a dresser can take the place of wall units in a smaller room. See our bespoke joinery page for the workshop side.
Deliveries and working hours
Noisy stages such as cutting openings are kept within Haringey's permitted times: weekdays from eight in the morning to six in the evening, and Saturday mornings until one.
Behind the Broadway and Fortis Green Road, narrow service lanes reach the backs of the parades; one of them takes supermarket lorries.
A skip left in a residents' bay needs that bay suspended for every day it stands there, plus a skip licence.
Sources: Haringey Council: Noise complaints, Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008), Haringey Council: Apply for a parking bay suspension
Muswell Hill kitchen questions
Can I knock the kitchen through to the back room?
Usually, with the wall above carried on new beams and padstones and the steel protected against fire.
Do I need permission to remove a chimney breast?
Not planning permission for an internal one, but building regulations approval every time.
Can the cooker hood vent through the front wall?
Not without planning permission in a Haringey conservation area, so we route it to the back.
Does a kitchen in a parade flat need the landlord's consent?
It can, depending on the lease, whatever the council has approved.
Can my Muswell Hill kitchen extend into the garden?
Often, though Haringey does not normally accept full-width rear extensions.
Should old kitchen windows be replaced?
Haringey's guidance leans towards secondary glazing first.
Sources: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Structural Opening, Planning Portal Interactive House: Do I need permission to remove chimney breasts?, Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas), LEASE: alterations and home improvements, Haringey Council: Development Management DPD (Haringey Local Plan, adopted July 2017), Haringey Council: Energy efficiency in conservation areas
Related pages
Sources
- Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Structural Opening
- Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
- Planning Portal Interactive House: Do I need permission to remove chimney breasts?
- Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Ventilation
- Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas)
- LEASE: alterations and home improvements
- Haringey Council: Development Management DPD (Haringey Local Plan, adopted July 2017)
- Haringey Council: Energy efficiency in conservation areas
- GOV.UK: Approved Document H, Drainage and waste disposal (2015 edition)
- Haringey Council: Noise complaints
- Haringey Council: Apply for a parking bay suspension
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