My Garage Conversion

Sandman

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This may be of interest to those thinking about converting their garage into a habitable room. First things first, this is not a DIY project for me. I thought about trying it myself but decided there were too many things that could go wrong that I went with a recommended contractor.
My house is a 3 year old new build with a 5.3m x 2.5m internal garage. The garage is too small for a car so has been used a storage/dumping space since we moved in. Before starting we put up a garden shed for all the stuff we kept in the garage.
Anyway work started today and I took some before pictures. I will update the thread with progress until it is finished.
You can see the electricity meter and consumer unit in the corner. This will be boxed in and a cupboard door put on for access to it. We will also be running HDMI and aerial cables from the tv’s position to the cupboard to keep everything concealed.
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The garage door is going and will be replaced with a window to match the rest of the house. The opening will be narrowed so the window is the same width at the window above. Brickwork below will match he existing (I hope). The masking tape on the wall shows the position where the TV will be hung.
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The builder dropped off some material ready for them to start. Here you can see the floor insulation, floor boards and plasterboard for the exterior wall (where additional insulation is required).
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They have been hard at work since 8am this morning so hopefully I will have a decent update later tonight.
 
Well the builders just left and they got far more done today than I thought they would.
They built a floor frame, slotted in the insulation and got the floor boards fitted. The finished floor level is now the same as the rest of the house.
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They also ran all the electricity cables to where the new sockets are going and moved the light switch to beside the internal door.
All the cables from the tv have been run to what will be the equipment cupboard.
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The equipment cupboard has been formed. It’s the same depth as the bit of furniture my wife has choose (40cm). You might just be able to see the tv cables entering from the bottom right.
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And finally they insulated and boarded the exterior wall.
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The window has been delayed by a week unfortunately but they will have everything else done for it coming.
Tomorrow an electrician will be fitting all the sockets, downlights and a nicer light switch. The joiner will be finishing off the cupboard and fitting the door. The garage door will also be removed and boarded up till the window arrives.
 
I like the cleared space in the garage; in mine I’m still moving all my junk from one corner of the garage to another. At some point it’s gonna have to go! 🙂

Haha, you should see the mess inside the shed now though. 🤣
 
What are your plans for the room when finished? I do like these conversion threads.
It will just be used as a 2nd tv room really. A 65“ tv is going on the wall and the Xbox Series X will also be in this room. We will use it for movie nights and it also means I won’t need to sit through cooking/baking programmes and my wife won’t need to put up with watching F1 races.
My daughter will be 13 in a couple of months so I’m sure she and her friends will make use of it too.
 
Lots of progress made today again. Electrics all completed, lights fitted, walls taped and the garage door has been removed and the wall built ready for the window being delivered (which won’t be here till next Friday).
Actually almost feels like a room now.
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Impressive. :thumbsup:
 
looking great and always helps if the build team is good and gets job done well!
 
Today’s update isn’t quite as interesting I’m afraid. The skirting boards have been fitted (I will be removing them again to fit the flooring at the weekend), the equipment cupboard is finished and the joins in the plasterboard were given a 2nd skim. Plumbers coming tomorrow to fit the radiator so I have painted that section of wall already.
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I like the look of the recess for a massive TV :devil: :D Will it be OK above a radiator though? ;)

Being serious for a second, I'm glad you went for the lighter grey.
 
Yes my wife was keen on the darker colour but I think it would close an already small room in too much.
 
Oh no, we’ve hit our first snag!
The plumber turned up last night and fitted the radiator. He joined it to the pipe work for the radiator that is in the room directly above. I knew this is what was happening as the builder put all the pipe work in on day 1.
As soon as the plumber finished and went to turn thermostat up to make sure it heated up as expected I realised the error. We have 2 heating circuits with separate thermostats. One for the upstairs of the house one one downstairs. The new radiator is connected to the upstairs circuit.
I can’t blame the builders for this as they would have no idea we had separate heating circuits and I should have picked up on this much earlier.
Im now dreading having to tell him this morning and finding out how much it will cost to put right.
From what I can tell, the skirting boards will need to come up, the whole floor will need lifted and the internal wall will need opened to expose the pipes for the radiator in the hallway.
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Oops.
 
Thinking out the box....

Remote TRVs on the upstairs radiators?


other brands available such as Tado.

It might not be suitable, it's just an idea to stop you having to tear up all the work done.
 
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To save ripping up structural work already done why not put a standard TRV on each radiator upstairs and set them for the temperature you want for each room then set the upstairs overall thermostat to a high temperature say 30 degrees and have another standard thermostat on the new radiator? You could use remote controlled TRV but it's another level of tech that you won't change once you get it set how you like. You would effectively be bypassing the upstairs overall thermostat. This is how I have my heating set up as I view the overall thermostat as too blunt a tool and superfluous but a legal requirement.
 
I’ve have two heating zones like a lot of others, ground floor and 1st floor. Very rarely have the 1st floor on. I would see it a bit uneconomical to have the 1st running to heat a ground floor room.

How come the builder initially run the pipes, and not the plumber?

Surly it’s for the builder to resolve. There must be some ground floor zones pipes accessible somewhere?
 
for the price of rectification-leave it as is and accept the slightly increased costs and put a small additional heater in room , eg oil filled radiator
 
The builder had put all the pipes in place then the plumber just arrived to connect them to existing heating pipes. The builder didn’t know the upstairs rads were on a separate loop and for some reason I didn’t think to mention it to him. To be honest I don’t blame the builder at all. I knew he was connecting the new rad to the one directly above it but I didn’t give it a second thought until 2 mins after the new rad was plumbed in.
I spoke to the builder this morning about it. He could disconnect it and re-route it to join the downstairs loop but it would be lots of work and put us back to nearly stage 1. We didn’t even discuss how much it would cost because I cannot be bothered with the hassle it would cause anyway.
All my upstairs rads have thermostatic valves on them anyway so I could control the heating as advised above. The other thing is we aren’t likely to be using the new room on a daily basis (we have the living room for that) so turning the upstairs heating on for an hour whenever we want to use the new room when it’s cold outside isn’t the end of the world. It’s not ideal but it is what it is now so we will just need to live with it. Not only that but it is a small room and it is very well insulated now so I don’t even think we will need the heating on in that room very often.

Anyway, not much else was done today. A bit of plastering to tidy up the ceiling where the plumber accessed the upstairs pipes and the bricks were delivered for under and around the window.

ps. Thanks all for the advice.
 
As the builder wont be back till the end of the week I decided to make a start on decorating this weekend. Get plenty done with the walls painted and the flooring down. Whilst painting I found a bit of flaking plaster around a socket so scraped it back till I found good plaster, sanded it and replastered. I will sand smooth and paint that section tomorrow.
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I can finally provide an update on the project. The window was delayed slightly but it has now just been fitted in the last hour. The builder will be back tomorrow to finish the plastering around the window so I should be able to finish the painting on Thursday. The brick layers should also hopefully be back tomorrow to finish the exterior work.
I have also painted all the woodwork. Hoping to get the TV on the wall for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
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Think it looks really nice, and the house looks nicely balanced with the new window

on the off chance you are not fed up with building works, I’d be thinks about buying a load more of those bricks and building a good size porch with similar style roof to what is over the door now.. Circa 2.5m x 2.5m with windows in each side. But, easy to get carried away when you start house alterations
 
We’ve actually discussed putting in a porch. It would be a great entrance and help keep the flooring in the house clean. Maybe a project for next year though.
 
That’s everything completely finished with the garage conversion and I am currently enjoying watching the Grand Prix on the big screen (even though I don’t have a sofa or blinds yet).
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