partitioning garage

[Kam1984]

Hi,

I currently have a garage to the side of the house and a car port directly infront of it (share the same roof and side walls). There is an external uPVC door from our house hallway that enters the car port. A lot of my neighbours have already moved their garage door to the front of the car port therefore making it a much longer garage (existing garage + car port).

I have spoke to council planning and they are happy for me to do the same - as car port does not extend beyond front of the house, and the walls and roofs are already intact.

Now... that should be fairly straightforward.

What I then want to do is put a stud wall up in the place where the existing garage door is. I'd like to also put a washing machine and sink in this partitioned space.

I have no intention of raising the floor or amending roofs or any windows or anything. I may like to use some celotex type stuff and maybe some plasterboard on walls and to throw some lino down to make the area look neat.

Can you see that I would require any permission or regulations to put up a stud wall in place of existing garage door and a normal firedoor and to use some of the space for a washing machine?

 

[Tigercubrider]

no.
so long as it's not a "habitable room" then it's just storage.

 

[^woody^]

Creating an attached garage would require building regulations consent.

 

[Kam1984]

Thank you. In my opinion its not a habitable room. It will still have a step down from the main house and I intend to keep the exterior uPVC door to access via the main house.
However, I will be needing a bit of plumbing work (potentially into the stud wall) to get the sink and washing machine working. I'm not putting a radiator in there, although that could be very easy as the boiler is already in there too.

I guess where I am going is there a grey area between habitable room and utility space partitioned within a garage.... what is the criteria that would make it habitable?

Also - as long as i build it in line with any building reg rules - using firedoors and other things... can we go back to getting building regs in the future if i did decide to throw a pool table in there, a bar and a few chairs? This is not my intention right now.

 

[Kam1984]

Thank you Woody . I spoke to a planning officer who examined the house (probably on google map), and told me it is OK to put a garage door on the front of the car port as it still falls under the rules of permitted development (e.g. not further forward, not more than half width, the height of the roof). so even though all i'm doing is putting a garage door and no building work, it still has to follow the permitted developement.

She did say that I could get a lawful development certificate for this if i wanted to. I can ask my neighbours to see what they did.

That is the first half of my job which just makes my garage double the length... the second half is the partitioning i want to do within the garage space. i doubt planning officers are interested in that?

 

[mrrusty]

I think you may not have fully grasped the difference between planning and building control. As far as planning are concerned it is about location, size, appearance, function. As far as building control are concerned it is about method of construction, materials, safety, insulation etc. so whilst planning might be AOK, you separately have to consider the building regs, and as woody says, constructing an attached garage attracts building regs consent. (is extending an existing attached garage a "new attached garage" - I'm not sure - others will most likely confirm). Dividing up an existing garage into non-habitable spaces for workshops, utility, hobby rooms etc generally does not (although elements like leccy might).