Extensions

A room, a floor, or a wing

The quote form lists “home extension” under building. That covers a room added to the side or rear, a storey added to a bungalow, a kitchen pushed into the compound, a small flat over an existing garage or shop. It is not a new build on an empty plot, and it is more specific than a general renovation. If the reason for the work is a crack or a failed slab rather than a need for space, start withstructural repairs and say that space is also wanted.

Micheletti Construction looks at the existing building before describing the new one. Alberto Micheletti’s listed experience runs through project management in Lagos, management at an Ibadan contractor, and the managing director role in Abuja since 2012. Extensions are a typical job in all three cities. They are also a typical way to create a leak, which is whyroofing is not a separate company on this site.

Load, then weather

A side room asks the foundations and the old flank wall a new question, and it asks the roof for a new valley or apron. An extra floor asks every wall below it, and it changes the height the wind sees. We do not diagnose either from a paragraph. We do refuse the cheerful version in which a bungalow “just takes another deck” because someone wants the space. If a structural look is required, we say so before a price pretends otherwise.

Water follows the new geometry. The junction between a new sheet and an old sheet, the point where a new concrete roof dies into an old parapet, the gutter that used to discharge and now cannot: those are the details to draw before the blocks go up. In the rainy season an open junction is an emergency even if the rest of the programme is calm. Lagos’s second rains after the August lull, Ibadan’s September peak, and Abuja’s late-summer maximum are the dates that matter, not a generic “avoid rain.”

The plot you actually have

Lagos extensions are often a negotiation with a tight plot. A rear room in Surulere or Yaba may have no side passage. Materials come through the house. Party walls are close. On the Island and in Lekki, the limit may be the estate or the drainage as much as the fence line. Adding a floor increases scaffold and wind on a coast that already corrodes metal. Low ground means the new room’s floor level is a flood question, not only an architectural one.

Abuja extensions meet district rules more often than party-wall squeezes, though Wuse and Garki can be tight. A house in Maitama or Asokoro may have the land and still need the estate’s or the authority’s yes. Gwarinpa, Lokogoma, and Kubwa add gates and similar neighbouring roofs: a new storey changes how the row looks, and the roof junction with the neighbour has to be detailed. Harmattan is a reasonable season to open the structure; August is not, unless the temporary covering is real.

Ibadan extensions often happen in family compounds: a room to the side in Bodija or Akobo, a floor on an older bungalow in Jericho or near the university. There can be more land than in central Lagos and less certainty about what the existing roof is hiding. Trees, slopes, and years of patch repairs make the junction messier than a clean drawing. We look at the old sheet before we specify the new one. We do not use L. D’Alberto’s Ibadan address as a site office for this work.

What to write on the form

Say whether you are going out or up. Say whether people will keep living in the house. Name the neighbourhood and mention a gate if there is one. If you have a sketch, say so in the notes; you do not need to attach a full drawing set to be taken seriously. Approval fees are not listed on this page. If a permit applies, it will be identified for the plot, not copied from a national guess.

Request a quote when the extension is more than a wish. If you are unsure the walls can take it, say that. A slower first reply is better than a confident price for a floor the house should not carry.