Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Next year I am considering a new garage.

I have enough space for a double and in many ways have a blank canvas.

What would you go for when building a garage? Brick? Concrete sectional? Steel?

What facilities? Obviously electric and lighting but water no big deal.

It would be nice to be able to get two cars in and still have enough room to move around adequately.

Would be good for any tips from anyone who has done this.

Depends what you want from the end product too and what your local building regulations are. Some councils regard any single storey wooden garage as temporary and any non-wooden as permanent, requiring different permissions. This is second hand info passed on by family and friends over the years rather than personal experience. I'm yet to build my own garage, though I'd like to one day.

Wood is great for being cheap and easy to put up but not so great on the fire retardant front. They also need quite a bit more maintenance if you're wanting it to hang around for a long time.

Concrete sectional is the quickest and easiest to put up but does suffer with condensation if there's no insulation used. They also tend to be freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer, much like a conservatory just without windows.

Brick and breezeblock seems to be the best all rounder for cost, longevity and practicality, especially if you're going to be spending a lot of time working in it. Breezeblock also goes up really fast and is easier as a one man job to construct than concrete.

With the roof, flat ones are cheapest but rather than having a level flat one, put a pitch of some sort on it so it doesn't flood and leak. Flat roofs tend to be more able to get around planning restrictions than pitched ones, and are usually much cheaper to produce. However, a traditionally pitched roof with strong beams does give you the opportunity to fit lifting tackle or just have extra storage space so it depends what you want and what the local council doesn't want you to have.

For facilities, electricity is all you really want internally and for power points you ideally want a minimum of two per wall so you don't have to trail cables everywhere. You don't have to use every socket at once but the more you've got, the easier working life will be. Lighting too you want to go for more than you might expect and not just on the ceiling, having some light bars lower down the walls can really help with any jobs you're doing under the car. Get an extractor fan fitted too if you're building from scratch, they're ridiculously useful in all weathers whatever you're working on.

For water, an outside tap is sufficient really, near the door is best since that's where you tend to need it the most. It also means should a pipe burst due to freezing or some other mishap, it's less likely to flood the garage.

Final tip would be to make sure the entrance to the garage is as smooth and level as possible with the least amount of step or ramp you can get away with. Even the slightest variation can make a car impossible to push on your own, so why make life harder?


Sorry there's no actual specific technical info, hopefully others can expand on that, this is just what I've picked up over the years from others that have done the job.

I am hoping to have my own dream garage built this year too.

Breeze block/Thermolite block, have a cavity insulated wall and brick outer if you want, other than that just render
the block, have a power floated concrete slab, an electric feed fed from your house mains with an armoured cable,
will out last you mate. ;)

Go for the best you can afford. A brick and block garage will add value to the property but will be more expensive to build. Depending on the position and size of the garage you may be able to build without planning consent under "permitted development rights". You need to speak to your local authority planning department. You will still need to get building regulations approval for any permanent structure.
With regards water, I would put the tap just inside the door as it is less likely to freeze in winter.

Gents - thank you for all your replies. All good tips and advice. Planning now for 2018. Think the wife would prefer the borrow the extra money on the mortgage renewal for the loft conversion and not the garage though

If I can try and do much of it myself though it will cut down on costs.

First job is see what the planning guys say you can have and take it from there.

Lots of useful information here, Paul:

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/

220 GSi turbo wrote:Lots of useful information here, Paul:

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/

Cheers Paul
:-)

If you're considering repairing chassis/subframes and need to use a Mig Welder, then a 16 amp cooker type socket will come in usefull. 13 amp is limited to 160 A at the welder. That limits a machine capable of welding thicker steel at 180 A because the fuse blows .

Also plan around your garage door only sectional and aluminium roller doors can be insulated. I know this because I have to buy a new one myself, as the old one has had it.

Paul_1978_yorks wrote:Gents - thank you for all your replies. All good tips and advice. Planning now for 2018. Think the wife would prefer the borrow the extra money on the mortgage renewal for the loft conversion and not the garage though

If I can try and do much of it myself though it will cut down on costs.

Finish the loft conversion and rent it out (to someone who's house trained isn't a complete nutter of course...). That used to be £4,250 PA tax free - which will help repay the additional loan and fund the garage too.