Help With Garage Conversion

Hi all,

As part of some building works Im knocking through into the garage from our downstairs bedroom to make a double instead of a small single.

We are having the roof replaced on the garage as part of the works, bco has stated we have to have a warm roof with 120mm insulation, we had intended to raise the garage height by a course to give reasonable head room inside.

Spoke to the neighbours today about this and they are stating they won't accept the roughly 75mm raise and will complain to the council if I do it as it will cause loss of light to the side of there house, on that elevation. They only have a window and door that are both frosted and in the kitchen.

Stupidly I didn't think about this when I applied for planning so the council will get involved if I just go ahead, if we build keeping the current height we'll have to remove a course of bricks for the wall plate and end up with a ceiling height of 2.1m in the new bit the original part will be 2.4m so will look a bit silly, if I could of raised the garage roof a bit I'd of made both ceilings the same height but 2.1m is just too low, it's only just above the door frame height.

Can anyone think of any design options that would allow us to gain some roof height?

Currently thinking if I can install some vent tiles in the roof and use some ducting to direct them into the roof space and vents in the fascia in the neighbours garden, the bco is going to look into this idea but if we can do it we will be able to do a cold roof and put the insulation in between the beams meaning we won't need to increase the roof height

Thanks
Chris

I don’t know….just pondering.

but could it done under permitted development?

Possibly could of but I included it on my planning application, I could probably apply for an amendment on the planning but that would lead to a pause in building for possibly 12 weeks whilst it's decided and we're wanting it water tight by Christmas

Is it a flat roof or apexed?
Is there a more efficient insulation that would permit the loss of 75mm inside the roof/ceiling?

Flat roof, no idea if there's an insulation available at 75mm that will perform like 120mm foil backed

Supposedly aerogel is better than foil backed, but not sure how much by (if at all, judging from some comments on here)

If you are worried about losing/gaining 75mm of headroom, could you make that up by dropping the floor or compromising on floor covering?

Spoke to the neighbours today about this and they are stating they won't accept the roughly 75mm raise and will complain to the council if I do it as it will cause loss of light to the side of there house, on that elevation

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Just because the neighbours say they will complain does not mean planning won't OK it. Does the raise cause a problem with the 45 degree rule that most authorities seem to impose? your own LA planning rules should specify how they apply this. AIUI it applies to habitable rooms but kitchens sometimes are/are not included.

Spoke to bco this morning, he's said I can build up to 2.5m eaves under permitted development regardless of what's on my planning application, he also said the vent tile idea for a cold roof would be acceptable, I would need to put 100mm Celotex in between the rafters and an inch of insulation below, having measured it out this would get me to a 2.2m ceiling height internally which I can live with.

The builder also suggested I could put a decent size flat lantern on there that would give the feeling of more height which is worth looking into as it shouldn't affect the neighbours as it will be more central on the roof

Your neighbours sound like first class wan k ers

Well just finished speaking to the neighbours for the final time,

There adamant if I build the extra height over permitted development and even if I build to permitted development they will complain to the council that they want it all demolishing as the foundations it's built on is on their property.

My options now are I stop building and go through the planning hoops which I'm fairly sure will be granted but will likely take me into next year before the sites watertight or I just get on with it and see what repercussions it brings, likely a retrospective planning application.

Or I build a cold roof on the lot and have a ceiling height of 2.1m and cut my daughters legs off at the knees

The foundations the neighbours are whining about- have they been there a while (5+ years) or have you recently dug then?
If the former then the neighbours can whine all they like, permitted development is exactly that so crack on and ignore them, try not to stir the pot too much with SDS drilling at 6am etc .
EDIT Up to you whether you go with PD now, if you can wait I'd be tempted to go PP and get the space you want rather than the compromise. Plus material prices and availability might have settled a bit by then.
If PP gets knocked back you can always go PD....

The foundations are about 6 weeks old, the wall is built inline with the existing garage on my boundary line, so just like the existing garage the foundations are under the neighbours side path, on the other side of their property their garage foundations are into next doors side path just the same so their argument wouldn't run very far.

The idea was to increase the height of both the new porch and garage behind it (half is being converted to a bedroom, the other half a shed) to the height required for a warm roof and proper head height probably a run of 10m. I've asked the builder to have a look tomorrow at just raising the height of the porch and the half of the garage I need for the bedroom and leaving the other 4m or so at the original height so they lose no light to their rear window and garden, it's the only concession I'm making to them and if it's feasible then I'll just get on building it that way and if the council start at least I can show I made the best effort I could to not affect them

Is it possible the actual boundary is actually the outside edge of the footings? Could you argue this?

Who knows, ironically the neighbours in question have a foot of my land in their garden at the front of the property so if I insisted on claiming that land it would all be built on my property anyway but I don't need that piece of land so saw no need to make them dig their garden up