Timber garage/barn? Solar?

[Barnella]

I'm fretting. We're doing a big house renovation project and as part of that are planning to build a 3 door garage- this will just be for storage.

The architects who are working on the house have designed quite an elaborate brick building with water and electricity running from the house. We've been quoted £150k plus vat to build it which was much more than I wanted to spend. The design is also not quite what I wanted- I'd rather have a big space inside, not 3 separate bays and I'd have been very happy with a timber building in a barn style (see pic, although I only want single storey).

We have planning permission for it and we've come so far down this path that I'm struggling to know what to do. What I'd like to do is bin the architect's designs and start again with a company that makes timber outbuildings. I think this will be a lot cheaper as well as being more what I want.

Has anyone done this? Can you give me a rough idea what a timber building like this might cost? And reassure me that it's not mad to change plans at this stage despite having come this far?

I also like the idea of putting solar panels on the back of the roof (not visible) instead of running electricity from the house. The only electricity I need there is a light and enough to run a freezer- surely this could be done with off grid panels?

Any advice would be very gratefully received.

The other thing to consider is why you need a space that big just for storage. Fair enough if you have a couple of very valuable classic cars or a boat etc but if not you could be spending 100k+ just to store things that actually don't have that much value

Thank you, both.

We do need the space but nothing we are storing is that valuable- ride on mowers, garden furniture etc. Today I have contacted a company that do timber framed garages to see how that would compare. I've also found a local solar panel supplier who are going to advise on the difficulties of panels off grid (the location of the new building is going to be slightly tricky to run power to so if we can do it off grid, that would be better). The roof is south facing and looks across open arable land so should get a reasonable amount of sun.