Garage doors - is it still a garage?!

[babsthebuilder]

Most of the houses on our street have replaced their garage doors with patio doors, and use it as the entrance to their house. We are looking at doing a part conversion of the garage, and whilst googling building regs etc I have come to question the definition of a garage.

If we took our garage door off and replaced it with glazing and an external door, would it still be a garage? There is a upvc door and window at the opposite end of the garage, so both ends are accessible, but sealed (I read something about the garage door helping with ventilation in the event of fire.

Any ideas o wise ones?

Couldn’t you just apply for permission and do it properly?

We’re considering our options, but by not making it a formal room, it will be easier to return it to a garage if we wish to move. Im not sure if any modern cars still fit in garages, but someone may wish to try. Using the machines in the garage doesn’t bother me at all, but I would prefer to keep the kids away from the lawnmower and tools when I’m in there, hence the stud wall.

I’m just now overthinking the definition of a garage basically, and wondered if anyone knew.

Does it matter?

We just had a full garage conversion done under building regs. No planning permission required.

I don’t know what size your house it and what people look for in the area but it’s likely that they might prefer more living space to a garage anyway.

IMO you can instantly tell a garage conversion a mile off. Unless you add a first floor and make it a proper extension they always look clunky and pretty crap.

If you are intent on staying put, you might not care, but if you are planning to move at some point, consider it very carefully.

Shots I don't think you can tell mine is a garage conversion because we didn't just stick in a window into the door aperture, we matched the existing window on the other side of the front door for size. Therefore it looks like it has always been that way.

Re planning permission, you can look at the neighbours houses on the local council planning portal online and see if they had planning and building regs or just building regs.

We had to have planning as well as it went down as a change of use but also we have no permitted development rights so we needed planning but it didn't cost any money for the planning application, just the building regs.

They take into consideration if you have off road parking even if you don't use the garage to park a car.

I think “part conversion” was maybe the wrong term. Basically we are changing the doors like the neighbours to make access easier. Other than the stud wall to hide the garage and items we are not converting anything. We don’t want to, and don’t see the point in paying for it if it’s not what we want.

I’m simply asking for information about if a garage is still a garage without the traditional door. I’m not bothered how it looks, and there is already living accommodation above. I maybe should have posted on a different site.