Choosing a garage for your home
Jane Crittenden outlines what you need to know to choose the best garage design for your home
What are the key considerations for putting together a garage design? Jane Crittenden shares her top tips
Above: Dormer roof windows turn Oakwrights’ fourbay garage into a multi-purpose zone for parking, storage and living
The garage is a major feature of any home, so its proportion, size, style and function are important to get right. To achieve a cohesive design, don’t let it be an afterthought; make the garage a key part of the design journey at the start of your self build. Here’s how to establish what type will best suit your needs.
What is your garage for?
You may be thinking that the answer to this is fairly simple (to park cars, obviously) but this isn’t such a silly question. Garages are a great opportunity to add extra space such as a laundry room, gym, office, games room – or to house services such as a hot water tank, and all the gubbins associated with underfloor heating, a mechanical heat recovery ventilation system, solar panels etc.
If you are intending to use it for vehicles, then plan the dimensions for the cars you own now, and those you might have in the future. As a rule of thumb, two 4x4 vehicles will comfortably fit side-by-side in a 5.6m x 5.65m garage.
Add a pitched roof and you’ll have loft storage or space that can be used as an ensuite guest bedroom or selfcontained annexe. Rupert Elliott, project designer at The Oak Designs Company, suggests a full span garage of at least 5.8m deep x 5.65m wide and a roof pitch of 45°. “This will give you enough head height and space from end-to-end for the room to function properly,” he says.
The best location
Design the garage in tandem with the new driveway, which will be determined by access from the main road. Planners decide how much parking is required based on the size of your house and expect you to include provision for a safe turning space. They may have a say in whether you can have an integral or detached garage, or state that it has to be positioned within a certain distance from your home. Practically, the garage needs to be close enough to the house to be convenient but not located in a way that compromises or undermines its appearance or views.
Design thoughts
An integrated garage connects straight into your home, which is ideal if you want to step into a laundry, plant room or workspace. Link it with a utility that can be shut-off from the rest of the house and insulate shared walls. “Placing an integral garage as one limb of an L-shaped plan avoids blocking off an elevation that otherwise might have windows,” advises architect Julian Owen.
The garage design needs to complement the house yet remain subservient. Using the same construction method tends to be more cost effective if you’re building from scratch (and easier to construct if integral), and similar materials and colours will help the garage to blend in.
Oak frame designs are a popular choice, often featuring bays and created with the same detail and care as an oak frame house. Border Oak uses its own prefabricated weatherboard panels for the infill sections – a two-bay garage kit starts at £6,500. “Someone with good DIY
skills could erect one of our two-bay garage kits over a weekend because we supply the timbers and materials pre-drilled and prefabricated,” says Merry Albright, creative director at Border Oak.
Size, design and purpose will all impact on what you pay. For instance, the Barcombe is an open two-bay garage by The Oak Design Company, with prices starting at £3,429; while Oakwrights’ Gloucester has parking for three cars and a room-in-the-roof, and costs from £30,000.
External timber cladding for this type of structure is often specified in oak, larch or softwood. “Softwood is the more affordable option and great if you’re going to paint the garage as it takes colour very well,” says Rupert Elliott. “Just remember to treat the wood every few years to prevent rot.” Conventional blockwork builds might feature a brick, rendered or timber-clad finish.
If you don’t intend to have living space in the garage now, you might still want to future proof the building. The correct roof pitch, windows, a side door and perhaps an external staircase are all things to consider, as well as where you might connect to the services.
Doors, no doors – or a combination
A carport without doors works well for long/high vehicles as there is no frame or opening mechanisms to get in the way. Roller doors, sectional products and up-and-over units retract back into the ceiling, maximising the width of the garage. They’re useful when driveway space is limited – the vertical lift means access is possible even when the car is parked in front of the closed door.
Companies such as Garador and Hormann sell a wide range of garage doors made from steel, wood and glass reinforced plastic (GRP) in a variety of colours. “Hardwood doors are unusual as very few companies can do this due to the weight,” says Elizabeth Assaf from Urban Front.
In terms of price, Garador’s Carlton steel up-and-over door starts at £636 in grey, while Urban Front specialises in contemporary hardwood front and garage doors that match, and prices start at £8,000 for a side hung design. A unit that opens in this configuration usually has a more traditional feel and tends to be the preferred choice for oak frame garages. Although, Rupert Elliott says all door styles are possible as long as they are designed into the frame early on. “We’ve had customers choose roller shutters and wood doors that run on a hydraulic ram, which be opened and closed mechanically,” he says.
Insulated doors will make garage living spaces more comfortable and, on integrated zones, minimise draughts into the house. Hormann’s LPU 67 Thermo sectional door
has a 67mm thick foam core and can be fitted with its Thermoframe, which is designed to improve insulation by up to 15% (prices start at £2,600 and fitting).
Julian Owen says that proportion is important, too. “A large double garage door set on the front of a house elevation looks out of scale with the doors and windows. It’s better to split the design into two single doors with a pillar between them.”
Building control & planning permission
Integrated garages need Building Regulations approval. A detached garage less than 30m2 without any sleeping accommodation is usually exempt. It needs to be of noncombustible material or at least 1m from the boundary.
You’ll always need to go in for planning for a self build project. With existing homes, single storey detached garages are generally considered to fall under permitted development as long as a dual pitched roof ridge is no higher than 4m and any other roof is no higher than 3m. Oakwrights’ Kenchester, Border Oak’s Classic 1 range and The Oak Designs Company’s The Chailey sit within these parameters. For more information visit the Planning Portal.