Kitchen Extensions Ealing

A kitchen extension in Ealing is one of three jobs, and the house decides which. The borough's Victorian terraces and Edwardian villas can take a side return infill or a rear addition, and a 1930s semi can take a rear room across the back. A flat takes neither without a planning application, because householder permitted development applies to houses only. Ealing Council is both the planning and the building control authority, so the drawings, the steel and the kitchen layout have to agree before we set out a single footing.

In Ealing, 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 Ealing: 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 suits an Ealing terrace, semi or villa

The shape of the plot sets the extension type in Ealing. 28% of homes in the borough are terraced houses, and on a terrace the natural move is to fill the side return beside the back addition and open it into the existing kitchen, keeping the rest of the garden. 16% are semi-detached or detached, and on those plots the alternative is a straight rear extension across the back, sometimes drawing in the side passage too. Each route changes where the new steel lands, how far the drainage has to move and how much light the middle of the house loses, so the choice is structural before it is a matter of taste.

Flats need a different conversation. A ground floor flat in a converted Ealing house has no householder permitted development rights, so even a modest rear kitchen room needs a planning application, and normally the landlord's consent under the lease as well. We programme a flat extension on that basis, with the consent timetable at the front rather than squeezed in after the design is fixed. For a house, the first question we ask is whether the extension fits within permitted development or needs a householder application, because that answer sets the start date more than the build itself does.

Housing in Ealing

Ealing counts roughly 149,900 homes for Council Tax; 28% are older than 1919, 30% interwar and 42% post-war, with 54% flats and 46% houses. Most homes here are flats, and only a ground floor flat in Ealing with its own garden can extend its kitchen.

What Ealing's SPD 4 says about depth, windows and boundaries

Ealing's SPD 4 Residential Extensions is the document your designer draws against. It says that in most cases a single-storey rear extension with a maximum depth of 3 metres and a height of 3 metres will be acceptable. It adds that a deeper one may be allowed where the house is detached or well separated from its neighbour. On a terrace or a tightly spaced semi, that makes three metres the working depth for an application, and any extra depth has to be argued from the plot and the neighbour's daylight rather than assumed at the start.

The same guidance advises keeping windows out of the side wall of an extension and putting them in the front and rear walls. For a side return that shapes the whole room: the long wall against the neighbour stays solid, so daylight has to come from roof glazing over the return and from the rear doors. We plan the roof light positions with the structural engineer we appoint, because a long glazed strip along the party side needs its own support and moves where the beams sit. Building a new wall on the boundary, or bearing steel in the party wall, is notifiable under the Party Wall etc. Act, and you serve those notices as building owner. Settling all of this at drawing stage avoids a redesign once the frame is up.

Kitchen extensions inside Ealing's conservation areas

Ealing Council says the borough has 30 conservation areas, and in them normal permitted development rights are restricted, giving the council more control over the size, design and location of extensions. SPD 4 adds two points that shape a kitchen scheme directly. An extension wrapping around the side and rear is discouraged and usually refused in a conservation area, and a rear extension there should not run across the full width of the original house. That makes a wraparound unlikely to be approved in a conservation area, and leaves a narrower rear room or a side infill on its own, which also needs a householder application there.

In the Bedford Park conservation area an Article 4 direction goes further, and planning permission is also needed for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a dwelling house, which catches rear additions that would be permitted development elsewhere. If your house sits in one of these areas, allow time for a householder application, matching brick and joinery details, and comments on the glazing from the conservation side of the planning team. We build to the approved drawings and keep the agreed samples on site so the finished extension can be checked against them.

Drainage, inspections and the kitchen fit-out in one Ealing programme

Drains are the first thing we check on an Ealing kitchen extension, because the back of the house is where the soil stack, the gully and often a shared run sit. Ealing says a building notice cannot be used where an extension, erection or underpinning is over or within 3.0m of a public sewer. Where Ealing is your building control body and a sewer runs under or near the new footprint, the job goes through a full plan application and the water company's build-over process as well. We expose and survey the run early, so any diversion or protection is designed before the footings are dug.

Ealing's typical inspection plan for a single-storey extension starts with commencement and excavations, then the DPC, floor damp-proof membranes and floor insulation. From 1 February 2026 site inspections run on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so we book each stage for one of those days. The kitchen follows in the same programme: first-fix plumbing, the extract route and the new circuits go in while the walls are open, and the units, worktops and splashback are fitted once the floor has dried. One team runs both stages, so nothing waits for a second contractor.

• Flat roofs with rooflights or a roof lantern over the kitchen
• Steel beams and goalpost frames into the existing house
• Boiler relocation and flue changes on the enclosed rear wall

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 41 statistical areas in Ealing. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Useful next reading for a kitchen extensions project in Ealing: kitchen renovation in Ealing, our Ealing area guide, a side return kitchen infill, the Party Wall Act on a boundary build, how we handle kitchen extensions across London and Steel-Framed Doors Guide.

Why Choose GS Renovation in Ealing

GS Renovation is run by its founder and director, Abdelaaziz Saaid, who has spent more than three decades on building sites. On an Ealing kitchen extension that means one firm handles the groundworks, drainage, steel, roof, glazing and the kitchen fit-out under a single programme, working to the drawings and the structural engineer's design you have approved. We visit, measure and give a written quotation, line the stages up with building control, and hand over the completion paperwork at the end.

• Screed left to dry before the kitchen floor finish goes down
• Founder with 30+ years of hands-on experience
• Building control and Part P certificates handed over together at the end

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.