Garage Conversions in Kent

Most attached garages in Kent stopped being used for cars a long time ago. They're full of bikes, half-empty paint tins, the kids' old toys and a freezer. Converting one is the cheapest way to add a usable room to your house — no scaffolding, no foundations to dig (in most cases), no garden lost. Typical 4–6 week programme and a budget of £18–32k for a single garage, including building regulation sign-off.

The single biggest mistake DIY garage conversions make is the floor. Garage slabs are usually 50–100mm below internal floor level, often without a damp-proof membrane, and frequently cracked. We strip out the existing floor, lay a new DPM, build up with 100mm PIR insulation and a 75mm self-levelling screed (or floating chipboard deck on a battened build-up if you need to match floor level exactly). This single detail is the difference between a warm, dry room and a cold, damp one.

Walls are usually a single skin of brick or block — fine structurally but useless thermally. We add 100mm PIR insulation on dot-and-dab plasterboard internally, taking total wall U-value to around 0.18 W/m²K (well above building regs). The garage door opening gets infilled with brickwork matched to your existing house and a new window — we always take a sample of the existing brick to a specialist supplier and source the closest match available, because mismatched brick on the front of the house is the thing that gives a bad conversion away.

Roof is usually fine if it's an integral garage (the bedroom above is already insulated). For detached or under-roof garages with cold-roof construction, we'll add insulation between and under the rafters and a new vapour barrier. Heating is usually an extension of your central heating system — adding a radiator or two — or a small standalone air-source unit if extending the heating system isn't economic.

Building regulations are the often-missed bit of a garage conversion. Internal conversions are notifiable under Part B (fire), Part C (damp), Part F (ventilation), Part L (insulation) and Part P (electrics). Most DIY conversions fail at the building control stage and end up uninsurable and unsellable. We submit and manage the application, sign off with the inspector, and hand over the completion certificate — without which you can't legally let or sell the property as having that extra room.