Garage conversion advice needed - choosing builder, floor, heating

j_yorks

Hi, we are looking for some advice on a garage conversion we are planning please.

We have a single integrated garage which we want to convert to a dining room with an area at one end for washing machine/tumbler dryer. The work needed is fairly standard - new floor needed (currently there's a concrete base), walls need insulating, sockets need moving, lighting needs changing (there's tube lighting there at present), heating needs to be fitted. Pipes, vent etc for washer and dryer are already there - machines don't need to be moved. A stud wall needs building down one side to cover all the meters etc and quite few pipes which would be tricky to move. One ceiling pipe needs to be moved up into the ceiling. The garage door needs to be replaced with a 4 foot window and the lower part of the current opening needs to be bricked up. At present there is a door and a small window at the back; the window is to be widened to full width (approx 6 foot) and the gap where the bottom of the door was to be bricked up - this involves widening the lintel. We need some kind of heating.

We've had a few quotes and they vary wildly from approx £8500 (no VAT payable) to £16,500 plus VAT. The expensive builder is accredited with the Federation of Master Builders, Trustmark, ECB etc. The others don't seem to have any accreditations.

Can anyone please advise on any of our queries:
- How do we choose a builder? Should we choose someone who is FMB etc accredited?
- What sort of price have others paid for a similar project?
- What sort of floor would people recommend please? We would like Amtico inside and different builders have recommended a concrete screed, floating chipboard, or non-floating chipboard floor secured to timber beams (all of these would need a layer of ply on the top for Amtico to be fitted).
- Heating options. We have underfloor heating (water pipes) in the rest of our downstairs. Extending this is very impractical. So we are choosing between new gas radiator, new electric radiator, or electric underfloor heating. Any thoughts as to which we should choose? Again different builders advise different options.

Thanks for any thoughts/advice/information.

macman

Planning permission needed, building regs, restrictive covenants? I'd check all these out before you start choosing flooring etc.

j_yorks

No planning permission needed (I gather this is unusual for garage conversions anyway), and the building regs will be fine. We've had 6 builders out to look so far and none of them have expressed any concern about the above, and from what I've read on the government website there would be no problem.