Kitchen Extensions Dalston

A kitchen extension in Dalston is mostly a job on a Victorian terrace. Only 21% of homes here are houses, and 18% of all homes are terraced against 3% semi-detached or detached. That means a narrow plot, a rear projection, a party wall each side and a garden that Hackney wants kept at a useful size. We build the ground floor extension and fit the kitchen inside it as one programme, working to your designer's drawings and whatever consent Hackney Council has given, so the steel, drainage, glazing and units arrive in the right order.

In Dalston, a rear kitchen extension of about 30 square metres typically costs £45,000 to £97,500 excluding VAT, or £60,000 to £100,000 for a side return (indicative London ranges, Resi, MyBuilder and Checkatrade, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Dalston: the structural engineer we appoint designs the foundations and steel, we build the room and fit the kitchen, and a registered electrician certifies the electrics.

How deep a Dalston terrace extension can go under Hackney guidance

Where a Dalston terrace extension needs planning permission, Hackney's residential extensions SPD, adopted in December 2025, is the test. Its consultation draft set a single storey rear extension on a terrace at no deeper than 3m from the original rear wall, and asked that at least 50% of the original rear garden stays as garden. On a short Victorian plot the garden test can bite first, so check the adopted wording with your designer.

The draft also applies a 45 degree line from the centre of the nearest ground floor habitable room window next door. On a terrace that window sits close to the boundary, so the line can cut the height or depth of the wall on that side. We look at the neighbour's window positions at survey, before any worktop run is fixed, because a sloping parapet or a stepped wall changes where the wall units and extractor can go.

Housing in Dalston

The stock in Dalston runs to roughly 7,500 dwellings, 79% of them flats and 21% houses, built 49% before 1919, 2% between 1919 and 1939 and 49% after 1945. Most homes here are flats, and only a ground floor flat in Dalston with its own garden can extend its kitchen.

Side infill, full width and wraparound on Dalston back additions

A Victorian house in Dalston with a rear projection, the narrow back addition that held the old scullery, is the typical starting point for the new kitchen. Hackney's draft guidance says full width rear extensions will normally be acceptable, but an extension that projects past the side wall of the original house will not normally be. The kitchen therefore gains width by filling the side return, not by pushing out sideways.

Whether you can also wrap around the back addition depends on designation. Outside conservation areas the draft guidance says wraparound extensions on houses with rear projections will generally be acceptable, subject to depth, scale and form. Inside a conservation area it will generally be possible to infill beside the projection but not to wrap around it where that is not the established character. Dalston conservation area, designated on 20 July 2016 and centred on Kingsland High Street, is one to check first, and in any conservation area a side extension is not permitted development.

Roof height and roof lights over a Dalston kitchen

Hackney's draft guidance says a single storey rear extension should have a roof height visibly lower than the sill of the first floor windows. On a Dalston terrace with low back bedroom sills, that fixes the parapet line and leaves little room for a deep flat roof build up. We agree the insulation depth, the falls and the upstand with the designer before the steel is ordered, so the finished ceiling inside is not lower than the plan shows.

Roof lights are where a side infill gets its light, because the neighbour's wall blocks the side. The draft guidance says new or replacement roof lights should not exceed 600 mm in width and, in conservation areas, should sit flush with the roof. Ask your designer whether Hackney applies that to a flat extension roof as well as a main roof slope. Where it does, a Dalston kitchen gets a row of narrower units over the worktop rather than one wide lantern, which changes how the lighting and extractor ducting are planned.

Sewers, building control and the Dalston kitchen programme

A Victorian terrace in Dalston can have a shared drain running behind the row, and part of that run may be a public sewer, which matters for building control. Hackney Building Control will not accept a building notice where the work is within 3 metres of or over a public sewer, so a full plans application is needed instead. We ask for the sewer records early, because a build over agreement or a diverted run changes the foundation design and adds time before the first dig.

Hackney runs its own building control service, and where it is your building control body its inspection days are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. We plan the dig, the foundation pour, the steel and the drainage test around those days so the inspector sees each stage open. The kitchen is sequenced behind the shell: first fix plumbing and wiring while the walls are open, then plaster, then units and worktops once the floor screed has dried in your Dalston house.

• The kitchen itself fitted under the same contract as the build
• Island units with power and waste run through the slab
• Hob gas supply altered by a Gas Safe registered engineer

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Dalston East and Dalston Kingsland. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Once the kitchen extensions work in Dalston is scoped, people usually go on to read kitchen renovation in Dalston, kitchen extensions across Hackney, fitting the kitchen itself, sign-off by building control on a kitchen extension, kitchen extensions across London and Steel-Framed Doors Guide.

Why Choose GS Renovation in Dalston

You get one builder for the structure and the kitchen, so the steel, the drainage, the roof lights and the units are planned together rather than handed between trades. We build to the consent and drawings your designer produces, and the structural engineer we appoint does the steel calculations. You get a written programme showing when the back of the house is open and when the kitchen is back in use. Abdelaaziz Saaid, the founder, has more than thirty years of hands-on building behind the way the site is run.

• Drains surveyed by camera before the footprint is fixed
• One contract for the groundworks, the steel and the kitchen fit
• Itemised pricing, so you can see what every stage costs

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254). Structural design is by the consulting engineer appointed to your project.