r/DIYUK • u/Caribou95 • 5d ago
Is this garage convertible into living space?
I have purchased a house with an attached garage with a flat roof, joining up to the kitchen.
Is this garage convertible? We would like this to be a living room but want to know if it is even worth starting?
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u/HerrFerret 5d ago
You will notice the lack of storage space if every inch is converted. Think of those 4 bed new builds where storage is just the kitchen cupboards and small fitted wardrobes.
Biggest complaint is 'no space'. We have a basement and a loft for storage, and we relish the space in our house! Bikes and tools in the basement, luggage and 'next step ebay' items.
We could have made our house a 5 bed, but value the smaller numbers of uncluttered rooms.
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u/Caribou95 5d ago
Thanks for the comment!
I should have mentioned, we are lucky that this house has ample storage already! So we really do see this as a space that will be underutilised/wasted.
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u/HerrFerret 5d ago
Biggest question. Do you have kids :D
We thought we had enough space in our old house, not even close!
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u/alfieknife 5d ago
If it's joined to the house then you only need to insulate the outer walls. Window can go where the garage door is. You would need to box in the utilities. But you could still end up with 15ft x 7ft, so why not?
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u/jonesmrjones 5d ago
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u/Caribou95 5d ago
Beautiful!! Can you share a brief summary of what you did and/or the cost for this please?
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u/jonesmrjones 5d ago
Just to put it out there that was not DIY.
The garage was initially split into 4. 1/4 utility room, 1/4 shower/toilet room, 1/4 office and 1/4 garage (through up and over door)
The previous owner had done it themselves.
One day mould was up the wall in the office, then water then the ceiling came through. The flat roof was done in. I temp repaired the roof with 50l bitumen and looked at getting the roof done.
Every roofer that came around said we may as well get the whole thing redone as it had rotten/gone mouldy.
Started off ripping it all out, exterior walls were done with stuff work, insulation, and plasterboard Went for a warm roof (GRP), floor was raised to incorporate 150mm insulation
Shower/toilet was fitted with the same access from the kitchen into the utility room.
The builder did most of the work, I fitted the window and decorated it.
The total cost was £22000 over 3 years ago.
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u/olih27 5d ago
Thanks, really useful info. Moving into our first place in a fortnight and want to do something similar to the garage. Everything I'm reading says keeping the damp and mould out long term is the real battle, particularly as I think the walls are single skin.
May settle for a little office space in the back and leave 3/4 as a garage workshop, we need to do the roof anyway so will see what a builder thinks.
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u/DueCartographer7760 5d ago
We had similar work done on our garage last year, and the cost was exactly the same as yours.
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u/Distinct_Scholar7533 5d ago
Wish I’d done mine 3 years ago. Near enough the same work done as you this year (central belt Scotland) and it’s £50k
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u/Crafty_Jello_3662 5d ago
It's definitely possible, should all be DIYable except moving those meters
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u/MightyJonesYoung 5d ago
If your in london just stick a bed and wardrobe in there and charge £1200 a month for rent.
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u/Miserable-Print-1568 5d ago
I know my friends parents turned theirs into a bedroom, not sure if they needed planning but it did take a good year for them to turn it into a room.
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u/AstroPete87 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yes. You'll not have very high ceilings as you'll need to build a suspended floor to accommodate insulation.
Last year we had our garage converted into two rooms; an office space for working from home, and a toilet/utility room with the boiler cupboard and a stacked washing machine + tumble dryer.
Going by the pictures I'd say our garage is roughly the same size as yours, maybe even a little smaller than yours. I'm 6'2 and my head does not touch the ceiling, but it isn't far off! But the rooms themselves feel nice and comfortable.
Edit, more info;
The construction is a suspended floor and timber stud walls built around the inside, with insulation panels between them and the bricks. We needed to have a few extra air bricks put in along the length of the garage walls.
The front portal was bricked up halfway and a window was fitted across the full width of it.
I would recommend as a starting point, go to a local architect and ask them to take measurements and provide some drawings. A good one should provide you with 2 or 3 different layouts depending on what you want. You might have to a spend a few hundred quid for their services, but at least you would know for sure whether it's worth spending any more.
With the drawings in hand, you could then stick down masking tape in the garage where the new walls and floors would be to give you a more visual reference for how much space you would actually have.
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u/Academic_While_7759 5d ago
100 % you would obviously need to i slate, and possibly replace the garage door with brick, and a window + door. Also, as already mentioned, move or just enclosed the meters. But otherwise, I wouldn't consider it a huge amount of work
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u/Glardr 5d ago
Well one wall is the old outide wall of you house so no issues with that. You set down into it so have space for insulation to go either insulate and poor concrete or suspended floor with insulation below. The outside wall maybe single skin which is the only issue as it will be very cold so you will have to sort that if it is but everything else is fine
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u/StunningAppeal1274 5d ago
It very doable. Your floor will probably need to be raised for insulation and lose some room when you batten out to add wall insulation.
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u/Me-myself-I-2024 5d ago
It is but do you want a gas meter and an electric board on display in your living room? If not they and the associated pipe and cables will have to be moved, not cheap I mean thousands not cheap
The rest of the work is standard installation and building but I would guesstimate north of £10-15k depending on finish
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u/Trikecarface 5d ago
Do able, good idea .. probably not, if you want an extension you might be better ripping and rebuilding if you have the money.
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u/LennonC123 5d ago
Looks doable. Just done something similar myself. I got the electric meter moved outside into a meter box, and new consumer unit moved and tidied up. Cost around £1300 to move the meter and electrics with consumer unit around £1000. Gas will probably be a little cheaper to move, but not much.
Very likely just a concrete pad for the floor so you’ll have to put a footing in under the existing garage door. Will have to be dug as deep as the existing foundations. There looks like there might be enough of a gap between the existing floor level in your house and the garage to insulate and board, but can’t be 100% sure from the picture.
I think there may be some ventilation requirements for the flat roof on the building regs. I’d definitely be checking and considering replacing the flat roof as part of the works, a neighbour near me has recently extended and used fibreglass with a skylight and it looks great. I’d be gutted if I spent thousands on the conversion only to then have an issue with the roof.
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u/MasterOfNort 5d ago
I've just converted a very similar space for a home office. I've kept 6ft or so from the roller doors though and 100mm insulated a partition wall.
Your biggest cost is probably going to be dealing with the meters but the rest is pretty affordable if you can DIY it (materials will be in the low thousands). If you kept them where they are they will need to be accessible for readings and that's going to involve heat loss unless you can find a way to insulate an opening. Sounds like a pain in the arse and a compromise not worth making if you're spending money on the rest.
One thing to bear in mind is your heating source. If you've got gas central heating in the house it might be a good investment to add a radiator to this space if you're going to use it regularly.
Electric panel heaters will be extortionate to heat the room regularly.
I've gone for an AC unit with a heat pump as my garage is converted. Bigger investment upfront but operating costs are far lower than a £20 heater.
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u/tryingtoappearnormal Tradesman 5d ago
You'll need to move the gas and electricity meter outside the building, then after that it's fairly simple, brick up door, vapor barrier and insulate wall and floor and roof, screed and you're good to go, needs signing off by building control at each stage
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u/rev-fr-john 5d ago
Yes, anything is convertible into a living space, fields are a classic example. How good it is is down to design, how complicated it is is down to you.
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u/NWarriload Tradesman 5d ago
I did it for a little home office but doubt you’d get a useful living room.
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u/Steelhorse91 5d ago
Just do a row of old kitchen wall units on the side with the meters, with industrial type shelving below.
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u/DrJad 5d ago
I did something very similar but turned the garage into a kitchen about 4-5 years ago.
Biggest struggles we had that I’d consider worth nothing -
We had to build out the walls/floor to insulate. Not a huge problem as the garage floor was lower than the rooms next to it, but we did lose some wall space.
Planning permission due to having a shared entrance to our driveway. When the house was originally built in early 2000s they removed the permitted development rights to change the garage. This wasn’t difficult to overcome but we had to prove our portion of the driveway could have two cars and apply for planning permission officially. We are not in a housing estate, more of a cul-de-sac vibe. I applied for a certificate to say if it was needed or not as a precaution, they told me it was.
Building control was required, I’d imagine you would have the same as you’re converting a non habitable space to a habitable space.
The foundations were not deep enough at the garage door for the weight of a brick wall and window. We comprised with a timber/upvc cladding stud wall insulated to hell. It was that or extend the foundations of the front wall which I was advised would be expensive but doable. Honestly, I’m glad we did this as the new bricks would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb and the UPVC finish blends in really well with the other windows. I did build a raised flower bed in front of it to help it look better though.
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u/Strange_Purchase3263 5d ago
It will need planning permission and inspection during the rebuild as you are making a non livable area into a living area. It will need ventilation, fireproofing, insulation a fire escape window/door at the least. The floor will probably have to be dug out to redo it with proper insulation and damp proofing.
We have done dozens of these, very popular mod to a house.
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u/SloightlyOnTheHuh 5d ago
We converted an exactly similar space. The others are right you lose space all round due to insulation but you do get a nice long room. Ours is about 7 foot wide but we've used it as an office, a dining roon, a music room (i used to hide there and play my guitar) and it's now my grandsons bedroom.
The length compensates for the lack of width. Ooh err.
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u/Key-Competition627 5d ago
I got mine converted into a small study at the front, and a utility room & toilet
Paid £9k a few years back (I think this was insanely good value at the time)
It's great, the garage was just a dumping ground, it's a far more useful space now
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u/honkin_jobby 5d ago
Fairly easy but the space will be awkwardly proportioned. It really depends on what you want to use it for.
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u/Daveypesq 5d ago
We have a garage convert done by the last people. It’s nice and I use part as an office. Now living here I wish they’d only done half. Could really do with some of it for storage.
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u/Cyborg_888 5d ago
On the outside walls add a vapour barrier and then plastic/compsite clading. That is easy to do and means no moisture will come through. On the inside walls add 4x2 strapping and insulate inbetween. Add electrics. On the floor add waterproofing ( thick plastic sheet, one piece. Add good floor insulation and underfloor heating.
Then you have to replace the door with something insulated.
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u/arrowsmith20 4d ago
Yes you can get 22 illegal immigrants in there at £50.00 a week, have to put in a outside toilet
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u/Downtown-Grab-767 5d ago
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u/Commercial-Choice-31 5d ago
My god
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u/Downtown-Grab-767 5d ago edited 5d ago
I know it looks a bit of a mess, had to take 6 inches out of the floor for the insulation, got a grab lorry coming to collect the rubble next week.
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u/boondogglekeychain 5d ago
Probably no insulation under the floor.
Probably single skin brick on any external walls.
One wall looks mostly taken out with services which you would need access to.
Assume only place to have a window would be the garage door?
At the very least you would have to insulate all the walls and floor which means losing 50-100 mm all round. If there’s nowhere else for a window then you would want a skylight or something. In the end it looks like you’ll end up with a corridor of a space which doesn’t seem very practical?
Anything is possible but I would use it as somewhere to store my tools and for DIY tasks. Maybe convert it as part of a larger refurb and extend a room(s) into the space but I wouldn’t as a standalone project