Garage conversions in Kent

Is converting your garage the right move?

A garage conversion is usually the cheapest habitable room you can add to a house, because the walls, roof and foundations already exist. Converting an integral or attached garage is often permitted development where the work is internal and the building is not being enlarged, though many newer estates removed those rights by planning condition and some permissions require the parking space to be retained. Building regulations always apply, because you are creating a habitable room.

The work is more than blocking up the door. Garage floors are usually laid lower than the house and without the damp proofing or insulation a living space needs, so the floor is normally rebuilt or overlaid with insulation and a damp proof membrane tied into the wall. Single skin walls need lining or rebuilding, and the roof, if it is a flat garage roof, often needs insulating and recovering at the same time.

• Floor: new insulated build up with a damp proof membrane linked to the wall damp proof course
• Walls: insulated lining or rebuilding where the garage is single skin
• Front opening: infilled with insulated masonry, usually with a new window to match the house
• Services: heating extended, new circuits, and ventilation appropriate to the room's use
• Planning: check for conditions removing permitted development or requiring parking to be kept

Guides

Useful Garage Conversions guides

• Garage to bedroom conversion: what it involves
• Integral garage conversion: turning a garage into living space

Across Kent

Garage conversions in Kent

We've converted garages across Kent into home offices, guest suites, gyms, snugs and self-contained annexes. Most Kent garages were built single-skin with no insulation and a sloping concrete slab — our scope always starts by upgrading the floor, walls and roof to current building regs before any internal fit-out.

Typical Kent garage conversions run 6–10 weeks on site. The biggest cost variable is whether we keep the existing roof or rebuild it for headroom, and whether the front garage door is replaced with a window or a full wall infill matched to the host brick.

Every Kent garage conversion includes building control submission, structural sign-off where load paths change, insulation to Part L, heating tied into your existing system (or new electric) and full plastering, decoration and flooring.