A client wants a kitchen opened into a dining room. She describes it as knocking a wall through and expects it to add a day to the schedule.
It is a load bearing wall. It needs a structural engineer, a steel beam, building control involvement, temporary support and a week of work before the kitchen can even be planned around it. Her budget and her timeline were both built on a misunderstanding.
1. Establish whether anything structural is planned at enquiry
Before a designer draws anything. This single question changes the budget, the timeline and the approvals required.
2. Explain that nobody can tell from a description
A wall's role depends on what sits above it and how the building is constructed. A competent assessment is needed and it is not a five minute job.
3. Say who assesses it
A structural engineer, producing calculations and drawings. Clients do not know this profession is involved and are surprised by the fee.
4. Explain the building control process
What approval involves, whether it is a full application or a notice, when inspections happen and what happens at completion.
5. Explain why the completion certificate matters
It is needed when the property is sold. Work done without it creates a problem years later that is expensive and awkward to resolve.
6. Cover the planning permission cases
Extensions, external alterations, listed buildings and conservation areas. Internal work rarely needs planning and clients conflate the two systems.
7. Raise party wall considerations
Where work affects a shared wall or is close to a boundary, separate obligations to neighbours apply with their own notice periods.
8. Ask about flats and leasehold
Alterations frequently need freeholder consent, and a lease may restrict them entirely. Leaseholders rarely check before planning a project.
9. Ask about the property age and construction
Older buildings, non standard construction and anything with unusual floors change the assessment substantially.
10. Cover the services in the wall
Electrics, plumbing, gas and waste frequently run through the wall somebody wants removed, and rerouting them is a project of its own.
11. Explain the temporary support stage
Propping, the disruption it causes and how long the room is unusable. Clients picture a wall disappearing and not a week of steel props.
12. Be honest about the cost band
Structural work is a substantial addition to a kitchen budget and clients should know before falling in love with an open plan drawing.
13. Say what happens if the assessment says no
Alternatives such as a wider opening, a partial removal or a different layout. A client given options accepts a refusal on the original idea.
14. Keep the approvals conversation joined up
Permits, inspections and sign off are one process, as covered in permit and inspection questions on remodelling projects.
15. Be clear about who arranges what
Structural work involves several parties and the coordination question matters, which is the ground covered in who does what questions on a remodel.
16. Give honest answers about permissions
Clients want a yes and deserve accuracy, which is the approach in planning permission questions and honest answers and needs the tone described in how to handle sensitive questions in your chatbot. An assistant that asks whether any wall is coming out, the property type and age, whether it is a flat and whether an engineer has been involved flags the project before anybody quotes a kitchen. See features, start at try, and the sector view sits under contractors.