Purpose built garden Room Vs converted garage

[tingalayo]

I'm buying a house which won't have a spare room to use as an office. There is a detached garage in the garden which we intended to convert to a garden office, and have budgeted about 20k for it. Estimated prices on the internet are all over the place and I can't work out what a reasonable estimate is really, but I'm now thinking it could be cheaper to demolish it and get a purpose built room that isn't brick. We'd have to move in before getting quotes but does anybody have any idea of what's the better option? Either in terms of cost, or benefits/drawbacks of each type of building.

Also, this is going to sound incredibly stupid and shows how little I understand about building, but how would they demolish a garage that's in a garden? I can't imagine demolition that doesn't involve a bulldozer.

Hi, we had this done as we had a detached garage in the garden. We split it though so we had some shed space and re-built in brick. We were told it would have been ten grand less to have it not in brick, though so your estimate of 20 seems fairly accurate.

We had a long detached garage. It's made of large blocks slid down in between uprights, if that makes sense. We had the rear half demolished and a proper garden office built for around £15k. We have a shared driveway so a small digger fit down there no problem.

We could have done something with the garage as it was, but I wanted the option of being able to replace the remaining front half of the garage in the future, which we couldn't have done if half of the original garage had been converted.

Our garage was a prefab so it was pretty easy for them to demolish. It was also quite close to the neighbours so we had to get planning permission but I know that not all garden offices do.

My friend used jack-hammers to demolish her garage.

I think nowadays a solid brick outbuilding will add more value than a wooden/shed type office thing. I'd probably convert the garage that is already there as knocking it down and having the rubbish taken away could well be quite expensive in itself and it seems a bit like defeating the object. You may also need planning permission to remove it whereas conversions (from what I've heard on here) come under permitted development.

Did you go for brick conversion or purpose built in the end?? I am in the same dilemma and unsure of what will be best. We have a brick built garage with pitched roof currently and we want to convert to a space for office/spare room.

Also very interested in what you decided! Similar situation for us.