Wandsworth · SW17 · SW18
Builders in Wandsworth, SW17 and SW18
Side returns, L-shaped dormer lofts and whole-house refurbishments on the terraces of Southfields, Earlsfield, Tooting and the streets around Wandsworth Common. More of our completed work sits in this borough than in any other, and it is the housing stock we know best.
The house we know best
Most of the streets we work on in SW17 and SW18 are late Victorian and Edwardian terraces, and they share a shape. There is a main body of house at the front, a narrower section projecting into the garden at the back — the original outrigger, built to hold a scullery — and a side alley running down beside it. Almost everything we are asked to do in Wandsworth is a response to that shape.
The alley is dead space. Nobody sits in it, nothing useful is stored in it, and its only real function is making the kitchen narrow. Filling it squares the ground floor into a single room, which is the difference between a galley you pass through and a room the household lives in. On one SW18 terrace we infilled the side return and the kitchen became wide enough for an island to sit at the centre of it rather than pressed against a wall.
The same outrigger explains the lofts. A dormer that follows the L of the roof gives you two pitches to build across instead of one, and that is what turns a loft into a proper floor rather than one room with a shower in the corner. It is the reason the L-shaped dormer is the standard Wandsworth loft conversion and not an exotic option.
What we have built in SW17 and SW18
Our portfolio is concentrated here, and each of these projects turned on a single decision worth explaining.
- Side and rear wraparound, SW18 — planned around a utility room, a pantry and a ground floor WC, because those are the things squeezed out of most extension designs and the things people miss once it is too late to add them.
- L-shaped dormer loft, SW18 — bedrooms and bathrooms on a new top floor, with the second bathroom settled at drawing stage rather than halfway through, because a second soil connection is not something to retrofit into finished work.
- Side infill extension, SW18 — porcelain plank flooring over underfloor heating run off a learning thermostat, with black aluminium crittall-style doors across the rear.
- Side return extension, Brudenell Road, SW17 — the owners asked us not to cover the steel up, and they were right. Exposed brick, visible steel, full-width bi-folds and rooflights overhead.
- Loft conversion, SW18 — Velux windows on the front pitch as well as glazing in the dormer, so no part of the new floor depends on light borrowed through a doorway.
- Whole-house refurbishment, SW18 — no extension at all. Chimney stacks out, the wall between the front and middle rooms out, windows replaced, full rewire and replumb.
Two planning routes, used together
Homeowners here are usually told they have a choice: build what permitted development allows and apply for nothing, or submit a full planning application and wait. It is presented as one or the other.
On two Wandsworth houses we used both. We took what permitted development allowed at the rear and applied for planning permission on the side, which produced a wraparound larger than either route would have permitted on its own. It is not a loophole and it is not unusual. It is simply an option most people are never offered, because it takes more work at the drawing stage than defaulting to one route and calling it the limit.
If a builder tells you your extension is capped at what permitted development allows, ask whether a combined approach has been looked at. On a terrace with an original rear outrigger it very often changes what is possible. It also changes the drawings, the sequence before work starts and who needs to be involved, so it belongs in the survey conversation rather than after somebody has already submitted something on your behalf.
Sometimes the answer is to take things out
We keep a Wandsworth refurbishment in the portfolio deliberately. It added no floor area whatsoever, and it demonstrates something the extensions do not: not every house here needs building onto.
Chimney breasts are the most overlooked space in a terrace. A breast takes a slice off the wall in every room it passes through, on every floor, and most terraces around here still have theirs. Remove them and you get usable wall back downstairs, upstairs and often in the loft as well — space you already own and are already heating.
The detail that matters is what happens above. If a stack is removed on the lower floors and retained higher up, whatever remains has to be properly supported, and gallows brackets are not universally acceptable to building control. That is settled by structural design and inspection, not by assumption, and it is what separates a chimney removal done properly from one that becomes a problem on the next owner's survey.
The same house had the wall between its front and middle rooms taken out, its windows replaced and a full rewire and replumb. If you are rewiring or replumbing, do it in the same programme as any structural work. Chasing walls and lifting floors is disruptive, and the most expensive way to renovate a house is one trade at a time.
The streets are not all the same
Wandsworth is not one kind of house. Southfields, and the grid running down towards Wimbledon Park, is dense late-Victorian terracing with consistent outriggers, which is why side returns and L-shaped dormers repeat there almost house for house. Earlsfield, either side of Garratt Lane, mixes those terraces with smaller cottage-scale houses where a full-width rear extension can swallow the garden and a side return is the better trade.
Around Wandsworth Common the houses get taller and wider — larger semi-detached and double-fronted stock, deeper rear returns, and more scope for a two-storey rear extension rather than a single-storey one. Tooting, on the SW17 side, runs to long uniform terraces where what your neighbours have already built is the most useful planning evidence available, because the council has assessed the same shape of application on the same street repeatedly.
There are also mansion blocks and converted flats, particularly nearer the commons and the stations. Those are a different discipline: no permitted development rights for extensions, and a lease that will require the freeholder's consent alongside the planning process.
Planning, party walls and neighbours
Applications go through Wandsworth Council. Many single-storey rear extensions fall under permitted development, but the borough has a number of conservation areas where those rights are restricted, and the rules differ again for flats and maisonettes. Check your specific address rather than the general rule, because these streets are not uniform in the way they look from the pavement.
Building regulations approval is needed either way, and on a terrace so is a party wall agreement. Infilling a side return usually means building right up to a boundary, which means notice served on the neighbour that side before anyone digs. Start that conversation early and informally. It is a legal process with fixed notice periods, and it is the most common reason a start date slips in this part of London.
Expect the neighbour's drainage to turn up somewhere it appears on no drawing. On terraces of this age it usually does. What matters is not whether it happens but whether your builder has a plan for it before the ground is open.
Common questions about building work in Wandsworth
Do you work across Wandsworth?
Yes. Home Constructive builds throughout Wandsworth, including Tooting, Earlsfield, Southfields and the Wandsworth side of Wimbledon. Most of our work in the borough sits in SW17 and SW18. If your address is just outside, ring us anyway and we will tell you plainly whether it is a job we should take.
What sort of houses do you work on in Wandsworth?
Mostly Victorian and Edwardian terraces, a great many of them with a rear outrigger and a side return. That shape is the reason side return extensions and L-shaped dormers are so common here, and it is the shape we know best.
Do I need planning permission for an extension in Wandsworth?
Sometimes not. Many single storey rear and side return extensions fall under permitted development, and so do a good number of rear dormers. Conservation area coverage and Article 4 directions remove those rights street by street, so the honest answer depends on your address rather than the borough. We check it with the council before anything is drawn.
How do I get a price for work in Wandsworth?
It starts with a free site survey at the house. We look at the structure, the drainage and the services, tell you what the house will and will not allow, and price the work we have actually seen. Ring 07891 981021, Monday to Saturday, or send the address and what you are thinking of doing and we will arrange a time.
Book a free site survey in Wandsworth
We can usually get to an SW17 or SW18 address within a few days. The survey costs nothing and there is no obligation attached to it.
We will measure the house, look at the outrigger, the alley and the roof, and give you a straight answer about what your terrace will take — including whether the honest answer is a smaller job than the one you had in mind, or a different one altogether.
From the portfolio
Work completed in Wandsworth
Wandsworth, SW18 · Side & rear extensionSide and rear ground floor extensionTwo planning routes, used together, to get one bigger extension.
Wandsworth, SW18 · Loft conversionL-shape dormer loft conversionAn entire new floor, because the roof had two shapes to work with.
Wandsworth, SW17 · Side returnGround floor side return infillThe owners asked us not to cover the steel up. They were right.