Garage conversions

What this covers

Turning a garage into a room you would actually sit in. The garage door goes, the opening gets built up or glazed, the floor comes up to the level of the house, the walls and floor get insulated, and the space gets its own heating and power. Finished, it reads as part of the house rather than a garage with a carpet in it.

Most garages around here are single skin, uninsulated and a step down from the hallway. All three of those have to be solved or the room is cold and damp, and it still reads as a garage.

What building control looks at

A garage conversion needs building regulations approval even though it usually needs no planning permission. The inspector is looking at the floor, the walls, the damp barrier, the insulation values, ventilation, and escape from the new room. Where the opening is widened or anything above it is carrying load, a structural engineer calculates the lintel or the beam, we install to those calculations, and building control inspects it.

We do not sign off our own structural work and we hold no structural qualification. Nobody who builds this work should be the one certifying it.

Where the garage door goes

Two honest options. Build the opening up in blockwork to match the house, render or face it, and put a window in it. Or keep the width and glaze it, which gives the room far more light but costs more and takes a proper lintel. What we would not do is board the inside of a garage door and call it a wall, because it never stops being cold and it shows from the street.

The parts people forget until it is too late

• The floor. A garage floor is usually laid to fall towards the door and sits low, so the build up eats height

• Where the storage goes instead, because the garage was doing a job before we started

• The boiler, the consumer unit or the meter, if any of them live on that wall

• Heating, because a radiator added to an old system is not always a five minute job

• Parking, and whether losing the garage matters to you when you come to sell

The skills this is built from

A garage conversion is insulation, floors, stud work, structure and second fix joinery, which is the work described in this Google review, quoted unedited.

“Ashwood Carpentry & Building undertook the renovation of my whole house in Pencoed, including digging new foundations, knocking down all of the exterior walls while supporting the existing roof, building the internal wooden wall structure, fully insulating the walls and floors, all new floor joists and floorboards upstairs and most importantly working closely with the structural engineer and steel fabricator to provide the structural support for the planned exterior doors and windows.”

Jessica Davies, five stars, March 2026

Common questions

Do I need planning permission to convert my garage?

Usually not, if the conversion is internal and the building is not being extended. You do need building regulations approval, and that is not optional. A listed building, a conservation area or a condition on a newer estate can change the answer, so it is worth a call to the council first.

Can I keep part of it as storage?

Yes, and plenty of people do. A stud wall across the back with its own door keeps the mower and the bikes out of the new room. Say so at the measure up, because it changes where the insulation and the heating stop.

Will the floor be level with the rest of the house?

That is the aim, and it is the part that decides whether the room feels like part of the house. It depends on the existing slab and the ceiling height you have to give away, so it gets measured before anyone promises you a flush threshold.

Will it be warm enough to use in winter?

Only if the floor, the walls and the new opening are all insulated properly and the room gets real heating. A converted garage that is cold in January has almost always had one of those three skipped.

Does converting the garage affect what the house is worth?

It adds usable floor area, which usually helps, but on some streets the loss of a garage puts buyers off. We will tell you what we think, and for anything more certain than that, ask a local estate agent before you commit.

How long does one take?

It depends on the floor and the opening, plus how much work the electrics and heating need, so you get a timescale after we have seen it rather than over the phone.