Garage conversion building regs question...

[poppa]

Ok, I am looking into converting our garage to a habitable room. The house is a semi-detached, and so the garage is bordered on one side by our neighbours garage.

What I am not sure about is whether the wall between ours and our neighbours garage would be classified as an internal wall or an external wall?! Any ideas?

If it classified as an external wall I presume it will be subject to stricter insulation requirements. Since the room is not very wide this could make it seem quite small...

Thanks for all input!

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Unless your neighbour has already converted his garage then this wall will be considered external.

 

[poppa]

Thanks for the reply, I suspected as much. Unfortunately that opens a whole new can of worms. If only I could convince them to convert their garage at the same time...

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

A whole new can of worms? Just how narrow is your garage, you're gonna loses about 120mm.

 

[poppa]

The main problem is that there is a big electricity meter on the wall, so I was going to convert the garage first, then (when funds become available) get the meter moved outside and insulate. If I have to add insulation/plaster behind the meter this messes up my original plans. It is probably best to do all the works at once. There also seems to be some concrete render on the inside of the external wall. It would be nice to remove this to increase the space, but I suspect that's not really worth it (or easily done).

I also noticed there are some 'getout' clauses in the regs. If the insulation takes up more than 5% of the floorspace you can do it to a lesser standard (not relevant here, but only just), and if the insulation does not provide a 'simple payback' in 15 yrs you can insulate to a lesser standard.

The room is about 2.55m wide before plastering.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

are you worried you'll have to insulate behind the meter? Just leave the meter where it is, no point paying an arm and leg to move that, just box it in. Whist the wall is technically external its not actually exposed to the elements on the back so I can't see BC having an issue with that.