Exploiting integral garage

[polygonum]

Have been looking at various houses with a view to moving sometime soon-ish. Some have integral garages. We are among the many who never use garages for cars but for doing things and storage. It looks to me as if some of the garages are positively inviting you to make a doorway from, say the kitchen, into the garage. And a wall of some sort across the garage somewhere around two-thirds of the way down it - leaving enough for the garage door to open (and keep the lawnmower).

Anyone able to give me a super-quick summary of the problems we'd hit in doing so? I can think of planning issues, fire protection, floor of garage not being level with floor of house, security (especially if the wall across has itself a doorway put in it). Anything else?

Obviously will be researching more thoroughly but would like to get a few pointers as to where there might be dragons.

[spuorgelgoog]

Not a problem in itself; there may be a fire resistant requirement and I th ink a requirement that the garage floor is lower than the house to prevent fuel/fumes creeping along the floor.

That wouldn't change the nature of it being a garage/utility room.

What would be an issue is if you changed the garage into a habitable room, where you'd have to upgrade insulation to current levels and comply with ot her building regs, and possibly require Planning permission. However this is not an uncommon project in many places; fit a nice window where the gara ge door was; park on the drive, and keep the lawnmower in a shed.

Owain

[Robin]

1. Read

1. Note especially "Sometimes permitted development rights have been removed from some properties with regard to garage conversions and therefore you should contact your local planning authority before proceeding, particularly if you live on a new housing development or in a conservation area". Some LAs charge for checking this; others do so free of chrage if you email details of a house you are thinking of buying.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Some local authorities have a cars-per-house figure which must be catered for, usually based on number of bedrooms. If the garage space was used to meet their requirements, you may not be able to change it to something else.

Fire protection shouldn't be a problem - that garage will have better fire protection than it needs after conversion.

There may not be suitable foundations under where you want to build a wall, in which case they will have to be laid.

The thermal insulation of the garage may not have been up to those required for living space at the time, and almost certainly won't be up to the standards required today.

I've been thinking of stealing a small amount of the rear of mine to make a downstairs toilet, as I don't currently have one downstairs, and I have a relative who can barely climb stairs anymore. An extra complication here is getting a sewer pipe routed to it. There is a cars-per-house figure here, but I can get 3 cars on the drive, so that's not an issue.

[polygonum]

Thanks, Owain.

In at least one such house, I am sure that the garage floor is (within millimetres) the same level as the rest of the ground floor. With a continuous, unbroken wall between the rest of the ground floor and the garage that wouldn't be an issue. Obviously if opened up to what was still a garage it would be a problem.

What determines whether a room is habitable?

We'd possibly want to use the two thirds of a garage as storage and, maybe, washing machine and freezer space.

[Andy Burns]

They have such a policy locally, but seem to apply it selectively ...

Someone extending a house to add a 4th bedroom was told they had to provide 3 off-street parking spaces, yet a whole new estate is being built where the 4 bedroom houses all have 2 off-street spaces.

[polygonum]

Thank you - good points.

[polygonum]

Have looked - definitely need to investigate - assumptions are right out on this sort of thing!

[Robin]

I forgot to add that my very limited experience of house-hunting so far is that people who have already converted integral garages tend to lie shamelessly about having checked permitted development rights, building regulations etc. ISTM the policy has to be "disrust and verify".

[polygonum]

Thank you - am well aware of that. A huge number of years ago I did a couple of things to a house which came up when I sold it - causing me some anxiety. In the end, the buyer didn't give a damn but I have often wondered if they later had any problems when they sold.

[Huge]

Too long. "People selling houses lie shamelessly." There. That's better.

[Robin]

Now you tell me.

Is it just me or was it more straightforward before all these bloody property programmes led to damn near every house being extended/converted/re-purposed?

[Huge]

Dunno. Haven't moved house for ~21 years. I'll let you know when I retire completely & move.

[ARW]

Estate agents?

[Huge]

Everyone. Not just estate agents. I pay no attention whatsoever to anything the vendors of houses or cars say.

[John Williamson]

And vendors.

[Robin]

These are resident homeowners telling porkies.

I suspect it's partly a result of my not having bought for 30 years. I truly think there were fewer outright liers in them days (if only because they feared the consequences, no matter how ill-defined).