Converting a reception room to a garage

The_Deep

I am considering a buying a house without a garage but with reception room at the front, see the floor plan here.


http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52275789.html


I understand that garages have to have extra inbuilt safety features, i.e. a lower floor than the rest of the house, and the wall between the hallway and the proposed garage rebuilt with a fire-door, but are there any other things I would need to consider?


I know I would need buidiings permission, but what about planning?

Doozergirl

I have never met anyone that wanted to do that. For a start, you will devalue the house, especially one that small.

It's not exactly wide enough to fit a car in properly and open the doors either and there are plenty of storage options that coupd be built or are prefabricated that don't cost as much or compromise the house.

I wouldn't feel comfortable digging up a fully insulated floor slab with DPM to go again with a lower floor. The floor slab is one entity across the entire house. Maintaining the DPM across the whole house is going to be a challenge as you can't overlap anything when the existing DPM is going to be somewhere near your new floor level. I'm sure it's surmountable but I wouldn't want to. The walls and ceiling also need to be fireproofed as well as having a fire door. And the internal walls and ceiling that become effectively external walls would have to be insulated to maintain the thermal envelope.

Tom99

The amount you will devalue the house by. With everyone else doing the opposite I would expect the house to be worth less. What do you want to use the garage for, a car or just storeage?

J_B

Is there room for a 'car port' either on the front drive or up the side?

ashe

Zero chance of getting a car in that. Do you own the land to the side?

TheCyclingProgrammer

Just a hunch but it looks to me like it was already converted from a garage to a room.

marlot

The_Deep wrote: »

I am considering a buying a house without a garage but with reception room at the front, see the floor plan here.


http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52275789.html


I understand that garages have to have extra inbuilt safety features, i.e. a lower floor than the rest of the house, and the wall between the hallway and the proposed garage rebuilt with a fire-door, but are there any other things I would need to consider?


I know I would need buidiings permission, but what about planning?

As The Cyling Programmer says, it looks like you're simply reversing an alteration an earlier owner did? Do other houses on the street have a garage in that position?

Doozergirl

TheCyclingProgrammer wrote: »

Just a hunch but it looks to me like it was already converted from a garage to a room.

I wondered that, but Streetview suggests otherwise. Next door is the same and it's all a bit too matched for me to be a conversion.

Makes the downstairs ridiculous without a second reception room given that the conservatory will not be original, but developers do seem to put some strange layouts out there.

Head_The_Ball

Here is a link to Google street view.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4437707,-0.9909835,3a,40.1y,324.23h,92.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sK-D970mGg0kc027ekEI7Mw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

It could be a garage conversion as the window looks slightly different to the rest of the house and the brickwork also looks very slightly different. The latter could just be the limitations of the google image.

I could be wrong.


OP, ask the agents or the vendors if it is a conversion.

Mojisola

Head_The_Ball wrote: »

Here is a link to Google street view.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4437707,-0.9909835,3a,40.1y,324.23h,92.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sK-D970mGg0kc027ekEI7Mw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

It could be a garage conversion as the window looks slightly different to the rest of the house and the brickwork also looks very slightly different. The latter could just be the limitations of the google image.

The house next door is identical.

It looks like a design feature.

SuperMoose

Looks like it was a garage at some point.
Link to previous sales details.

ETA
Streetview from 2012 shows the garage