Garage Conversions

Garage Conversions are a relatively inexpensive yet effective way of increasing your living space without extending your home or moving.

In many cases you won’t need to apply for Planning Permission to convert your garage into a room but you will need Building Regulations approval.

But before deciding to convert your garage into additional living accommodation, you should give careful consideration to the following:

Cost of garage conversions

Planning Permission and Building Regulations

Will the garage foundations be suitable?

Insulation of garage conversions

Heating and lighting in garage conversions

The cost of converting a single garage into a habitable room should be between £5,000 and £10,000 and could involve the following:

• Reinforcing the foundations for garage conversions
• Converting single skin walls into cavity walls
• Converting a flat roof into a pitched, tiled roof and raising the ceiling height
• Insulating the floor, walls and roof of garage conversions
• Installing heating, lighting and electric sockets
• Costs associated with a possible planning application
• Building Regulations approval and the costs of a structural engineer
• Carpeting and furnishing garage conversions

The costs shown above assume that your garage will be converted into another lounge area. If you wish to convert your garage into a kitchen or bathroom, the additional costs of fitting it out should be added.

Planning Permission for Garage Conversions

Unless you are intending to alter the structure of the building, in most cases a garage conversion will fall under Permitted Development.

However, if planning conditions were attached to your home or garage (regarding the number of parking spaces required) you may need to apply.  Also, if your garage is detached, you may have to apply for ‘change of use’.

Building Regulations for Garage Conversions

You will have to apply for Building Regulations approval to convert your garage into a habitable room.

The Building Control surveyor will inspect the work at various stages and issue a certificate of completion. The surveyor will be particularly interested in the structural aspects of the conversion (including foundations), damp proofing, insulation, ventilation, fire proofing and escape routes.

It is important that before starting work on your garage conversion you contact your local Planning Office and Building Control Department to check that your proposals are withing current regulations.

The foundations to your existing garage will need to be assessed to ensure that they are adequate to build on.

If your garage was built before the 1970’s and has a single skin external wall, it may be that the foundations are inadequate. it may also have no foundations at all under the garage door.

In more recent times all garages were built with cavity walls and full foundations, especially integrated garages.

Insulation is required in garage conversions just as it is in any other external room in your home.

Your loft conversion will require insulation of one type or another in all surfaces. This will include external walls, any internal stud walls, the roof, the floor and also any party walls.

Insulation will not only keep your garage conversion warmer, it will reduce noise between the attached rooms of your home.

Garage floors are always lower than the rest of the ground floor and need particular attention. Using the existing garage floor as a base, levels will need to be raised so that they match attached rooms. This will include a damp proof membrane, insulation and generally a cement screed.

Heating, lighting and electrical sockets are required in garage conversions just as they are in other rooms in your home.

Lighting – Adding Natural Light to a Garage Conversion

Natural light can be brought into a garage conversion by installing a window where the garage door was. Or you may want an entrance door and flag window.

Windows will also provide ventilation but you should consider other form of ventilation such as airbricks and trickle vents.

Artificial Lighting

As with any other room in your home, electric lighting will be required and there is a wide range of options available. Because you have a ‘blank canvass’ with this room you can add a combination of different types of light fittings to suit the use you intend to make of the new space.

Heating a Garage Conversion

If you intend to extend your central heating system into the converted garage you may need a larger capacity boiler and / or another pump. Alternatively, independent heat sources are available such as electric storage heaters (you should contact your energy supplier about Economy 7 if you choose to install these).

Advantages of Garage Conversions

• Costing between £5,000 and £10,000, a garage conversion will add more to the value of your home than it costs
• You don’t need to move house (moving costs could be as much as the cost of converting your garage)
• Garage conversions don’t normally affect your council tax band

Disadvantages of Garage Conversions

• During the building work to convert your garage, you may lose the use of an attached room
• If your garage conversion does require planning permission, it may not be approved
• An assessment of the foundations to your existing garage may result in additional work and cost