Garage to room?

bouicca21

I am considering making an offer on a town house - the sort that has an integral garage on the ground floor.

Before I get too involved and actually think about taking a builder round to look at it, can anyone give me a ball park guesstimate of how much it might cost to convert the garage into a room? It's roughly 17 foot by 8 foot and part of it projects out from the front of the house by say 5-6 feet, with a flat felted roof.

I know no one can possibly give me an exact figure, just want to know if I am talking around about 10k or 30k or more. I want to use the room as a study, so it will have to be warm ... And we are talking London prices.

Some of the other houses have done this and as I understand it, since the garage is integral to the house it won't need planning permission. So all I need to worry about are building regs (?)

BlueC

Ball-park I reckon £5k would do it easily. It would only need dry lining, perhaps insulating internally, something doing with the door, and a floating floor. Plus a radiator. It really shouldn't cost much.

phill99

BlueC wrote: »

Ball-park I reckon £5k would do it easily. It would only need dry lining, perhaps insulating internally, something doing with the door, and a floating floor. Plus a radiator. It really shouldn't cost much.

You have evidently done a lot of these.

The last one we did was as an additional room adjacent to the lounge. It required installation if a suspended timber floor, battened walls which were dry lined and skimmed and insulated. A knock through to the lounge, half bricked up garage door with DG window installed, 6 double sockets, 2 pendants, lined and insulated ceiling with coving, skirting board and architrave. No heating. Came to a bit over £8700.

BlueC

phill99 wrote: »

You have evidently done a lot of these. [...] Came to a bit over £8700.

I was being a bit lazy but if I did it myself I wouldn't expect to pay much more than £5k. Your price sounds reasonable.

bouicca21

Thank you. I need to make an offer before I can get a builder to take a look, so it is really, really useful to have some sort of idea of cost. I was hoping 10k would do it.

foxypink

Hi, I would double check that information you were given about not needing planning persission with your local planning authority, even if some houses in your street have done it under the permitted develeopment route your house may have been granted permission under a different application with different planning requirements. If you do need permission then you are usually required to provide a replacement parking space for the one you are losing. Maybe worth finding out as you will have to factor in the cost of constructing a replacement space/hardstanding

sweaty_betty

foxypink wrote: »

Hi, I would double check that information you were given about not needing planning persission with your local planning authority, even if some houses in your street have done it under the permitted develeopment route your house may have been granted permission under a different application with different planning requirements. If you do need permission then you are usually required to provide a replacement parking space for the one you are losing. Maybe worth finding out as you will have to factor in the cost of constructing a replacement space/hardstanding

I would second this. We have only been given PP for our carport (and our neighbours have only been giving PP for their garage) on the strict condition that it is never used as a habitable room. Our local authority really have a focus on maintaining off-road parking spaces.

2013yearofthehouse

foxypink wrote: »

Hi, I would double check that information you were given about not needing planning persission with your local planning authority, even if some houses in your street have done it under the permitted develeopment route your house may have been granted permission under a different application with different planning requirements. If you do need permission then you are usually required to provide a replacement parking space for the one you are losing. Maybe worth finding out as you will have to factor in the cost of constructing a replacement space/hardstanding

Yep, I would "third" this - I guess it can be different for different areas, but certainly in my county/area if you "remove" a parking space then you have to replace it. I've seen 3 garage conversions recently where the planners insisted on a minimum 2.4m x 4.8m area be designated/designed as a new parking space (they had a 1 car drive and a garage, so changed their front garden/drive to a 2 car drive instead).

jellie

I didn't need PP when I converted my garage, but I did check with the council first just to make sure.

I had 2 car spaces when the house was built but although I now have no garage I've still got 2 spaces as the front garden has been blocked paved. They were ok with this arrangement.

bouicca21

Thanks. There are 2 off street parking spaces plus the garage so I'd hope it wouldn't be a problem - but I'll check.