Single garage conversion cost: what the job involves and who is registered to do it

How single garage conversion cost works

1. Measure the finished internal width first. Take the internal width of the garage and subtract the wall build up on both sides. On a single garage that can be a substantial share of the width, and the number left is what you are actually buying. Draw a bed, a desk or a sofa into it before agreeing anything, because no amount of finish fixes a room that is too narrow for its purpose.
2. Decide what the room is for before the specification. A narrow room works well as an office, a utility, a playroom or a snug and badly as a double bedroom or a dining room. The use also decides the services: a utility needs drainage and ventilation, an office needs power and data, a bedroom needs a window that meets escape requirements and the fire separation that goes with it.
3. Look at whether external insulation is possible. Insulating outside rather than inside keeps the internal width, and it changes the elevation and needs the detailing at the eaves and the openings to work. On a side or rear garage it is often the better answer, and on a front-facing one it usually is not.
4. Keep the storage problem in view. A single garage is often the only storage the house has. Converting it moves bikes, tools and the freezer somewhere else, and if that somewhere else is a new garden building then it belongs in the same budget rather than in next year's.

Insurance and paperwork

Common questions

Can a single garage make a bedroom?

It can, and the constraints are width, a window that meets the escape requirement, and fire separation from the rest of the house where there is a door through. Whether it makes a good bedroom is the width question rather than the regulations question.

Do I have to fill the whole door opening?

No, and part filling with a window in the remainder is common and often looks better than a full fill. Structurally the lintel and the new wall below it still have to be right, so it is a design choice rather than a saving.

What about the up-and-over door mechanism?

It comes out, along with its frame and runners, and the opening is made good back to a proper structural condition. Leaving the frame in and boarding over it is a shortcut that shows within a year at the reveals.

Registered contractors by region

• Registered roofers in the East Midlands postcode area
• Registered roofers in the East of England postcode area
• Registered roofers in the London postcode area
• Registered roofers in the North East postcode area
• Registered roofers in the North West postcode area
• Registered roofers in the Scotland postcode area
• Registered roofers in the South East postcode area
• Registered roofers in the South West postcode area
• Registered roofers in the Wales postcode area
• Registered roofers in the West Midlands postcode area
• Registered roofers in the Yorkshire and The Humber postcode area