Knocking down garage for more garden

[MaryIsA]

1908 house, the garage is wide enough just for a small car, and 2 small cars long.

It’s a large store room really, in good nick, but has an asbestos roof.

I’d like to knock it dozen a few have the space back 8n the garden. We would need a shed to replace it.

Storage or garden?

As @BrotherlyLove said, we're also house hunting and I would never consider a house without a garage, even with a massive shed.

Maybe it's just where we live but getting rid of the garage would definitely devalue a house by a fair bit round here.

That said, if you're not moving anytime soon do whatever is going to make you happy - it's your house.

I honestly would not knock down a garage just to get a garage sized patch of garden back.
Demolition/groundwork costs aside, the financial hit on the value of your property would be significant.

This ^
Particularly if you are disturbing asbestos - costs will be high.
A small wooden shed isn't going to replace a large brick built garage in terms of how people value it.
Like all home alterations, if you are going to be there for another 25 years, then it makes sense to do what suits you, and your family of course, but, in terms of if a future buyer were looking at two similar houses, then people would overwhelmingly prefer a large brick store than a small wooden shed, I suspect.

We did this. We live in a city centre where garage parking isn’t the norm, but people buying a family sized house want a garden. The garage was a blot, the garden is a joy and a space for living. Knocking it down to create a proper sized garden will probably not have made the house more or less valuable, but will make it more saleable when we come to sell.

I would keep the garage,can it be converted to provide part storage and part sitting area by dividing it up some wall down? Useful in these covid times to have outdoor room

I would really love to do this as it would turn our garden from a small one to a decent size one and we would get the sunniest spot back. Our garage is in such a bad condition that it would be better to knock it down and start again. When it rains, the garage floods through the walls. You also can't really get a car in there as it is behind the house. I can't see how it could decrease the value of our house to get rid of it.

All that said I would also like to rebuild the garage on the side of the house if we knocked it down. Still wouldn't fit a modern car but non flooding garage would be useful for storage.

I want to do this too. 1920s semi, and the garage is at the back corner of the garden. There used to be a long drive along the side return, but the previous owners put up a high fence and gate when they got a dog, so you can’t actually get a car to the garage any more. The garage itself is in crap condition, the roof leaks and the doors are so rotten screws won’t stay in them. However, we have an extra fridge freezer in it, and DH has a wood turning lathe, plus bikes, lawn mower, tools and assorted other junk. We want to extend at the back of the house where there’s a 1980s conservatory at the moment, so we’d lose maybe a further 3 feet of garden. Ditching the garage in favour of a smaller woodwork shed would give some of that back.

You can get two cars on the drive (although it’s really narrow for modern cars!) so there’s off-street parking anyway, but in truth we don’t bother - we always park on the street, it’s not busy and on the very rare occasions we can’t park directly outside the house we use the drive.

I'd get rid of it.
If you resell with the garage potential buyers may be put off by a garage too small for purpose and a small garden with no where sunny sit.
Resell without but the garden has a nice sunny area to sit out on, parking on the drive and a good shed for stuff that seems far more appealing.

Garden for me

Garden by the sounds of it.

We are in the process of doing similar. Bought a derelict house, but the garage was falling down and covered in 4ft of ivy, plus asbestos sheeting! We hired a skip specific for asbestos. For an extra £200, they had a guy remove the asbestos roof sheets and add to the skip. It was worth every penny, because ours was much more complex than a plain, uncovered roof. Some councils will take asbestos away for a reduced fee, so check with yours.

Could you remove the garage, add a large shed for storage and get a car port instead?

Getting rid of a garage in favour of extra garden feels like it boxes well for humanity, so I'd go for that

Bodes not boxes!

Garden, and if the garage brickwork is sound and it is sited in a sunny spot I'd consider getting quotes for removing roof, replacing with something in keeping with structure and period of house and turning it into a split purpose building. Storage shed one end, summerhouse at other end with French doors, window, insulated etc. Small patio outside doors. Best of both worlds.

We pulled down our concrete garage and put up a similar structure. Really opened up garden and as summerhouse faces bottom of garden, feels like miles away, not a short walk from back door. It's made our garden.

We knocked down our garage (too small for modern family cars) and moved the back fence of our garden forward slightly, creating a parking space at the end behind the fence. We ended up with slightly more garden space overall and the space that we have now is much sunnier. On top of that we now have off road parking, although it's not an actual garage.