Converting part of garage into a storage room.

Belenus

Mutton_Geoff said:

I converted the rear half of my garage to an office/gym. I needed planning permission and building control. BC wanted a spring closure on the door between existing garage and office and a fire door with intumescent strip.

Unless you insulate the floor/walls/ceiling of the new store room, you'll be wasting shed loads of money trying to heat it.

As for keeping a fridge/freezer in a garage, they do not like having an outside temperature lower than the inside which will happen through most of the winter. This will cause premature failure of the compressor. Your pressure washer warranty is invalid if you store it in an unheated garage/shed over winter as water trapped inside the pump freezes and breaks the thing (ask me how I know). Finally, even cheap wine likes being stored at a constant temperature, the ups and downs of storing it in a garage with soon ruin even a half decent plonk. Garages are pretty useless places for putting stuff like fridges, pressure washers and wine!

Hopefully we won't need planning permission as it will not be a habitable room.

The garage gets cold in winter but never below freezing. We are on the south coast and our winters are usually mild. Our now 18 year old fridge freezer has been in there with no problems for ten years.

We don't envisage spending much if anything on heating in there, apart from the existing cost of heat transfer from the main house. That cost will slightly reduce after we build a partition wall. We don't need it kept at 18 degrees or so like the main house. Provided it is dry and above about 5 or 6 degrees it will be fine.

Good point about the pressure washer. I always empty the water out of it before winter and it has survived a few winters in a garden shed. However I will now move it into the rear garage storage section in future winters.

You are right about wine being best kept at a constant temperature but that only really applies to corked bottles. Variations of temperature expand and contract the liquid and that can result in oxygen being drawn in through the cork and spoiling the wine. That doesn't apply to wine in screw top bottles.

Our garage is on the north side of the house so doesn't get much short term temperature variations like the parts of the house that gets a lot of sun. I haven't had any spoiled wine in the last ten years, even after a few years of storage.

Nearlyold

Hi, had a look at photos, the recesses in themselves wouldn't be an issue, it's not quite clear from the pictures, are you saying the width measurement across the garage between the two inner wall faces is less than the width across the door aperture measured brick to brick ie. to the outer edges of the frame, if so by how much?  What is the width of the frame uprights, they look wider than the minimum Hormann frame width of 9.5cm when fitting doors in the aperture rather than behind.

Slinky

Belenus said:

lesalanos said:

Is the floor of the garage lower than that of the house? 

It may be worth raising the floor in your new storage room.  This should also help keeping it warmer too

Interesting point that we hadn't considered.

Yes, the garage floor is about 6 inches lower than the rest of the ground floor.

I don't think we will raise it as that would make it harder to convert back into a full garage in the future but thanks for the suggestion.

We may lay some floor insulation and then cover that with the underlay and carpet from our lounge.

I think building regs require garage floors to be lower than the level of the rest of the house because of the fire risk (think ingited spilled petrol running under a door into the house). Even if you never use or intend to use the garage for a car, somebody else in the future may, hence the regulation.

Our old neighbours split their garage in the way you mention with what looked like a plywood fronted partition with a door in it.

clearancer

We've just had a quote for building a custom shed inside our garage. Fully insulated, lights, power, soundproofed so my husband can practice on his electronic drum kit. A couple of quid over £2000, but they are so busy there is a 14 week wait list. 

Belenus

Nearlyold said:

Hi, had a look at photos, the recesses in themselves wouldn't be an issue, it's not quite clear from the pictures, are you saying the width measurement across the garage between the two inner wall faces is less than the width across the door aperture measured brick to brick ie. to the outer edges of the frame, if so by how much?  What is the width of the frame uprights, they look wider than the minimum Hormann frame width of 9.5cm when fitting doors in the aperture rather than behind.

It might be possible to fit that door but it would mean the garage door would be 20 cm further back in an already recessed opening and we don't want to lose even that relatively small bit of space.

If we did fit a new garage door we would like it fitted forward of the existing one on the outer pillars. 

However we have lived with a draughty up and over door for ten years and, if we build that partition wall, we can carry on living with a cold front section as the rear section will be draught free. I can fit some insulation strips and hopefully reduce the draughts although I will never eliminate them.

Thanks for your advice. Very useful.

Belenus

clearancer said:

We've just had a quote for building a custom shed inside our garage. Fully insulated, lights, power, soundproofed so my husband can practice on his electronic drum kit. A couple of quid over £2000, but they are so busy there is a 14 week wait list. 

Friends of ours have a similar set up but in a free standing building in their garden. He plays drums in an amateur jazz/rock band and they use it to rehearse with guitar, keyboards, bass guitar, sax, drums and vocals.

Standing just outside the door you can barely hear a thing. Open the door and a blast of sound hits you like a physical blow.

It is amazing how well sound proofed it is.