OKYou class it as an office, which would need facilities, and, of course ahem, nobody would ever be staying in said building overnight.:hide::hide::hide:
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I Have done many garage conversions ( both years ago in Barry and then down here ) I guess with the Bed, Kitchen, Toilet its going to be a " granny flat " or a " independent son / daughter place " , for this you will 100% need planning permission, the toilet and bed will dictate that
Now, I always ask potential clients at the 1st meeting what they want out of the conversion, plenty just want a Home office, some want a man cave, now this might include a toilet / small kitchen, If they are ok with themselves " bending the planning rules " it makes it alot easier to do, they create a " store room " ( call it what you will ) and convert that, yes that " store room shoudlnt have a kitchen or toilet , but who the hell will know ? ? ? going down the legit planning permission will add a few K onto the price right at the start
By avoiding planning and building regs ( now i am not talking of unsafe work, Electrical work will be done by a sparky and signed of ( if major ) though most garages will have lighting and a double socket on its own MCB, so not massive to extend the electrical ring ) will make the job alot easier and flexible, not to mention cheaper
as for the design,
I will lay down some DPM, on top of that lay either use 100mm or 75mm X 50mm " ( more often than not C16 CLS ) floor joists, with 50mm PIR board ( celotex / kingspan are 2 fairly common brands ) between the joists, then lay chipboard floorboards down
i normally use CLS timber to create a stud wall around the walls, fill the gaps of the stud with 50mm PIR if the garage as block / brick piers, i fit the studwork infront of them and fill the void behind it with 50mm PIR, , thats 100mm in total, if space is a premium, i fit the stud work between the piers and just use the 50mm between the CLS stud work, now i know that wouldnt be good enough for building control
staple a vapour barrier to the stud work and then plasterboard
As for the flat roof, you will be able to get plenty of PIR between the roof joists then plaster board, of course if the ceiling is plasterboarded, you will need to rip it down, once again, a vapour barrier and plasterboard
Wall mounted oil filled rads are great for keeping the room warm, low cost to run, looks nice, i have fitted underfloor heating ( warmup is a fairly decent brand ) in the past aswell, but thats a personal choice, maybe use both
I honestly find 50mm PIR warm enough, of course you can go 75 / 80mm ( i have 80mm in the ceiling of my new shed ) I am happy to go with 50mm for the floor and walls, then 80 - 100 for the roof
the big question is how much bending of the rules are you happy with, keep in mind if you do come to sell the house, you will only be able to sell it as a house with a " garage / shed / store room " and most likely have to pay for a £150 Indemnity insurance to cover the building
Ignoring the obvious (and acknowledged) BC and PP issues here, I can't quite get my head around this. What are these 75x50 CLS "joists" bearing on? Surely they cannot be spanning anything so presumably these are actually resting on an existing slab? If so - I can see the logic of the DPM but why bother with the joists at all? Why not just float the P5 on the PIR? And to be honest at 50mm for floor insulation- why bother at all? The heat saving through the floor will be negligible, but surely most of the buildings you are doing this to are limited to 2.5m height and so even a 63mm loss of headroom is sub-optimal?
It will probably come under permitted development, as long as you are not changing 25m squared of current development
You will still need plans drawn up by an Architect and submitted to the local council so everything is above board
Know of people who lay the foundations for waste but then cover it up, leave it as is for a few years until they think planning won’t be interested, then put in the wc etc....adding a kitchen is simple enough....it’s a risk though, only takes one neighbour to report someone is living in it and it’s all over.
But what happens if the house is put up for sale and the first question the proposed buyer's solicitor will ask is where is the documentation for planning permission and building regs?
It's best to be truthful from the from the outset as decisions taken now could have future consequences.
Ive known people do that, they know in 6 - 12 months time granny might be moving in, so just run the waste and fit a toilet if they do, even known someone fit a washing machine in the corner of the room, so the waste and pipes are run
talking of neighbours, i know of someone who was convinced his next door neighbour would grass him up, so as he was in the planning stage ( not planning permission ) he moaned to the guy about the cost of architects and the cost of planning and said he had just been charged this and that for the plans and to submit them, the power of persuasion :hehe:
You have been given some quite misleading advice here. Never take advice about needing planning or building regulation consent for a job from a builder. Nine times out of ten they will tell you not, to save time/money. In this case you will need to check if you have permitted development rights from the original planning or whether they have been removed. Almost certainly for a detached garage you will need planning consent for change of use anyway and also definitely building regulation consent for the actual work, which will involve at least partial rebuilding of the walls.
you are right they just sit on the slab, so no span / load bearing issues, 2 reasons for doing this
1. i have always done it like that, in the 90's people used to use polystyrene jablite batts
2., i run 32mm waste pipe from corner to corner under the floor ( i understand the required fall will not be achieved ), this is done for 2 reasons, if a client wants to put a washing machine in the corner, they can :thumbup: , if they want to run cables at a extra date, its easy to do, i just up turn the 32mm waste pipe and it lives behind the stud wall
Now the reason why i put insulation in, people like the idea of it, we are sold the more the better, a nice insulated floor ( despite the heat loss on the floor being very little )
Most garages are higher that 2.5M as they would either have been built with the house or needed PP to be built, i would guess that the height is most often than not 3M high inside
They won't tell their clients not to buy it, they're solicitors, they haven't got a clue and they don't care. Things can be retrospectively inspected, put right, insurance policies taken out or the value slightly reduced. All a pain in the arse, but standard shit concerning house sales.
from all this Mike, it sounds to me as if you might be better off demolishing the thing and building an extension to the house.
It may end up bigger better and easier lol
To be fair, Some builders will point out the risks aswell as the gains
In reality, you are taking a Brick / Block cube with no insulation ( often it will have power ) and adding insulation and Plasterboard, as long as its done in a safe way, it doesnt need to be over complicated
When i was looking to move 2 years ago, the amount of " buildings and conversions " that were listed on the details, a " roof room for storage " ( it was a 5th bedroom , but not signed off ) , " garden rooms / posh sheds / man caves / home bars " ( all that were unoffical buildings without BC ) converting buildings without the " red tape " is not a new thing ( i was doing it in the early 90's and people i worked with since the 80's )
Yes of course PP and BC is great, but at times it makes the project a no-go due to the extra expense, and sometimes the risk isnt worth the money , for example I once did a double garage conversion for someone who was planning for the mother to move into it, it had a wetroom ( with toilet ) and " kitchen pod ", all finished to a high spec, they went all out, The mother was living in it for 3 weeks then passed away :frown::frown::frown: the guy then turned it into a Games room and it was hardly used
:hehe:
Yeah it would. If I was younger and richer then that would be the best option. At this stage of my life I’m looking to wind down to the end of my mortgage not adding to it. Other houses around us have all had extensions or conversions. If we extended the garage backwards it would match up an extension on next doors.
Knocking it down and building a new stand alone building could be an option. I think I need a local builder to give me an idea. Lots of houses in the area have been improved.
An interesting set of responses. Thanks.