Kitchen Extensions Dulwich

In Dulwich, 29% of homes are terraces and a further 16% are semis or detached houses. Those are the homes that can take a kitchen extension: a side infill beside the closet wing of a terrace, or a room across the back of a semi or villa. We build the shell, set the steel into the old back wall, lay the new drainage and fit the kitchen in one programme, so the room is finished by the same team that formed it.

In Dulwich, 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 Dulwich: 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.

Which kitchen extension a Dulwich house can take

The house type sets the shape. On a Victorian terrace with a closet wing, the kitchen often sits in that narrow wing with a strip of side return beside it, so the usual job is to infill the strip and open the wing into it. A semi or detached villa has a wider back wall and often a side passage, which allows a wraparound along the side and across the rear, although a wraparound falls outside permitted development and needs planning permission. Southwark's Householder SPD says a terraced or semi-detached home can extend 3m to the rear and 4m high without an application.

The garden limits the footprint as much as the neighbours do. The same guidance caps a rear extension at 50% of the rear garden, which bites on shorter town gardens. National rules match the SPD at three metres for any house other than a detached one, with the four metre height cap, and a deeper room goes through prior approval or a planning application. Before a drawing is fixed, measure the garden from the original rear wall and work out what the scheme would leave, and show that garden area on the drawings beside the new footprint.

Housing in Dulwich

Roughly 14,360 dwellings sit on the valuation list for Dulwich. 45% are houses and 55% flats, and by age 56% predate 1919, 11% are interwar and 30% post-war. Since most homes here are flats, only a ground floor flat in Dulwich with its own garden can extend its kitchen.

Dulwich Village Conservation Area and the permitted development question

If your house sits in a conservation area, plan the kitchen extension as a planning application. Southwark's Householder SPD says the consent-free single storey rear extension is not available to listed homes or homes in a Conservation Area. National rules add that every side extension on designated land needs householder permission, and the larger prior approval route is closed there. Dulwich Village Conservation Area was designated on 7 September 1968, one of the first in Southwark, so check your address against Southwark's conservation area map before any design work.

For you this changes the programme more than the build. Allow for a planning decision before any start date, and expect the design to be read against the character of the street even at the back. The same SPD rules out UPVC in all of the borough's conservation areas, back elevations included, so specify timber or aluminium frames for the doors and windows from the first drawing rather than swapping them later. We price and build to the approved drawings, including the frame material the consent names, for Dulwich homes inside and outside the designated streets.

Steel, drainage and roof glazing on a Dulwich kitchen extension

Opening the old back wall or the closet wing into the new room means a steel beam, and on a period house in Dulwich that steel lands on old soft brickwork. The structural engineer we appoint sizes the beam and the padstones; we prop the floors above, form the opening in stages and bed the steel before the props come out. Where a side return infill runs along the boundary, the new wall may sit on or against the party wall, and Southwark's Householder SPD points out that a Party Wall Agreement sits apart from planning. You, as building owner, serve the notices, and we give your surveyor the drawings and dates.

Drainage is often the hidden driver of cost. A new kitchen at the back moves the sink and may pass over the existing run, so we survey the drains with a camera before the footings are dug, and any diversion or build-over agreement with the water company is raised early. Roof glazing needs the same early thought: a glazed strip along the party wall side lights the middle of a deep terrace plan, while a flat roof with a lantern suits a wider semi. The engineer confirms how the roof is carried, and the upstand is detailed against driving rain.

Fitting the Dulwich kitchen in the same programme

We run the extension and the kitchen as one job, so the kitchen layout is fixed before the slab is poured. That lets us set the waste for the sink and any island, the floor ducts for power and the extract route through the wall or roof in the right places. Southwark's online form lets applicants begin a building regulations application as a building notice, full plans or regularisation. For an extension with steel and new drainage, full plans gives you an approved set of drawings and calculations before work starts on site.

The sequence in a Dulwich house then runs: shell, roof and glazing, first fix electrics and plumbing, plaster, screed and underfloor heating if you want it, then units, worktop template and final fix. The template is taken once the units are level and fixed, so the stone or composite lead time has to be built into the programme from the start. A registered electrician tests and certifies the new circuits, and a gas engineer on the Gas Safe Register handles any hob or boiler move. You get one programme covering all of it rather than a builder and a kitchen company trading dates.

• Soil stack and gully rerouting beneath the new floor
• Flat roofs with rooflights or a roof lantern over the kitchen
• Island units with power and waste run through the slab

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for North Dulwich, East Dulwich, Herne Hill & Dulwich Park and Dulwich Hill. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Useful next reading for a kitchen extensions project in Dulwich: kitchen renovation in Dulwich, kitchen extensions across Southwark, a wraparound kitchen-diner, how building control inspects an extension, kitchen extensions anywhere in London and Utility Rooms and Their Cost.

Trusted Kitchen Extensions in Dulwich

You deal with one team from the steel to the last cupboard handle. The company is founder-led: Abdelaaziz Saaid, who founded it, has more than three decades of hands-on building experience, and you have one point of contact throughout. We give a firm price after a survey and work to the drawings and consent you or your designer obtain. We give your party wall surveyor and building control the programme and details they need, and keep the kitchen fit-out inside the same schedule so there is no gap between builder and fitter.

• Fully insured, with cover in place on every site
• Drains surveyed by camera before the footprint is fixed
• Rooflights set out against the engineer's steel layout

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.