Kitchen Extensions Hammersmith

A kitchen extension in Hammersmith is shaped first by what you own. Houses are the minority here: 77% of homes are flats, 18% are terraced houses and 5% are semi-detached or detached. On a Victorian terrace with a back addition, the space to gain is the side return, sometimes wrapped round the rear wall. A ground floor flat can extend too, but a flat has no householder permitted development rights, so it needs planning permission. We build the shell, the steel into the house and the kitchen as one programme.

In Hammersmith, 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 Hammersmith: 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 a Hammersmith terrace or semi

On a Hammersmith terrace with a back addition, the side return is the space to gain. The narrow strip beside the back addition is filled in, the old kitchen wall comes out and the room widens to the full plot. Opening the rear wall of the main house as well turns the job into an L shaped wraparound. The 5% of homes that are semi-detached or detached have more choice: a full width rear addition, or a side addition where the plot allows it.

The shape decides the structure. A side infill carries its roof onto the party wall or onto a new wall built on the boundary line, so the neighbour and the Party Wall Act come into the sequence early. A wraparound needs a corner post or a goalpost frame where two walls used to meet. A rear addition on a semi can often keep its side walls in masonry and put the steel only where the old back wall stood.

Housing in Hammersmith

Hammersmith counts roughly 15,040 homes for Council Tax; 56% are older than 1919, 9% interwar and 34% post-war, with 77% flats and 23% houses. Where most homes are flats, only a ground floor flat in Hammersmith with its own garden can extend its kitchen.

What permitted development allows for a Hammersmith kitchen extension

A Hammersmith house can add a single storey rear extension without a planning application if it stays within the national limits: three metres beyond the original rear wall, or four metres on a detached house, and no more than four metres high. Prior approval can raise the depth to six or eight metres, but only outside Article 2(3) designated land. An original Victorian back addition counts as part of the house, while a later extension may already have used some of the allowance.

Side extensions are where designation bites. On Article 2(3) land, which includes a conservation area, every side extension needs householder planning permission, and a side return infill is assessed as a side extension. Hammersmith and Fulham has 44 conservation areas covering about half of the borough, plus two more in the north, so check your address on the council's map before the design is fixed. We build to the consent you hold and plan the programme around its conditions.

Flats, Article 4 and flood risk around Hammersmith

A ground floor flat in Hammersmith can gain a kitchen extension, but only with planning permission, because the householder permitted development rules for extensions cover houses and not flats or maisonettes. The lease matters as much as the planning. The garden may be demised to you while the rear wall belongs to the freeholder, so a licence for alterations is normally needed before any steel goes in. The managing agent may want to see the structural engineer's drawings first.

Some houses carry extra controls. Article 4 directions restricting some permitted development rights have been made on some properties in Hammersmith Grove since its conservation area character profile was published. A house there may need permission for work a neighbour elsewhere could do without it. Flood risk is the other local check. Two thirds of the borough is within a flood risk zone, and the council's planning guidance asks for a flood risk assessment with an application for a property in one. That can set the floor level and the threshold at the garden doors.

Steel, drains and roof lights in a Hammersmith kitchen build

Opening the back of a Hammersmith house for a kitchen means a beam or frame over the new opening, sized by the structural engineer we appoint. The council recommends a Building Notice only for very small works, and under a Building Notice for an extension it still wants structural calculations for all structural work. The two routes cost exactly the same, so a kitchen extension with steel suits a Full Plans application, with the drawings checked before work starts.

Drainage often sets the programme. Many Victorian terraces in W6 drain through a run shared with the neighbours, and a new sink and dishwasher need a fall to reach it. Building over or near a public sewer also needs the water company's agreement. The council inspects foundations and the backfilling of drain excavations as set stages, and drainage inspections need 5 days' notice, so trenches stay open until the inspector has seen them. Roof lights and the glazed rear wall are ordered once the steel is in and measured.

• The kitchen itself fitted under the same contract as the build
• Floor levels matched through the old opening
• Building control inspections from footings to completion

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Hammersmith Broadway, Brook Green, Ravenscourt Park North and Ravenscourt Park South. Counts rounded by the VOA.

If this is your first project in Hammersmith, these are worth a look: kitchen renovation in Hammersmith, kitchen extensions across Hammersmith and Fulham, a wraparound kitchen-diner, how building control inspects an extension, how we handle kitchen extensions across London and Kitchen-Diner Layout Ideas.

Why Hammersmith Homeowners Choose GS Renovation

Hammersmith kitchen extensions join two jobs that often go to two firms: the building shell and the kitchen inside it. We run both under one programme, so drain positions, socket heights and the extractor route are fixed while the walls are still open rather than cut in later. The firm is founder-led, so you deal with one point of contact from the first visit to handover. After a survey you get a firm price, with the structural engineer and building control stages written into it.

• Kitchen layout agreed before the foundations, so the services land in the right place
• Screed left to dry before the kitchen floor finish goes down
• Clean, tidy and reliable tradespeople

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.