Knocking through integral garage wall to enlarge kitchen diner in new build

[Otter1986]

Has anyone ever pulled the all down between an integral garage and the main house? Did you run into any issues that you didn't think of? Was it a much more onerous job than you thought?

Context: We are looking at a new build house (built 2017). Overall, it's absolutely perfect in terms of location (near school, park, high street etc) and it's a great size for us. We live in an area of lots of small (900 square foot) two up and two down type victorian terraces so larger houses are few and far between.

The issue is that the kitchen diner leaves quite a lot to be desired - it's quite a restricted space. So, we want to knock the wall down between the existing kitchen and the garage to create an L shaped space - red circle is the wall we want to take out. We'd keep about 4 feet at the front to create a bike hangar but the rest would house a new u-shaped kitchen and the existing space would be a larger dining and seating space.

But we can't find much advice or experiences of this online, so is it just impossible? Builders we have spoken to say 'it depends (not helpful). We won't offer on it, if we can't do the work, so hoping to get some sort of insight by the weekend so we can make up our mind on this one.

Thanks

We have done it and love it. A few niggles but nothing insurmountable.
We had to have 2 massive steels, floor of the garage raised and found there was a variety of amounts of insulation so had to do it all - all expected.

The only unexpected was the roof of the garage was different to the roof of the existing kitchen - the garage was concrete for fire reasons so we had to have the steels bolted together and put goal posts at each end to support and then have it boxed in rather than being able to put it into the ceiling and have it flush. Our builder was amazing and had the steels returned to merchant, drilled, bolts sorted and returned to install within a couple of days.

Not heard of garage conversions in particular but new build developments usually have a covenant stating that you need consent from the developer to make changes to the property. This consent is not the same as local authority planning / building regs. It catches many people out as they have breached a covenant on the title meaning an indemnity is required.
One of the many reasons to avoid a new build.

To add we did have to get planning permission to do it. We got it no problem but we owned 2 garages (ours was a coach house and we bought a second one with the house) so we could argue that we still had a parking space (even though no-one uses them to actually park in as they are too small!)

You wouldn't normally need planning permission but would definitely need building regulations approval. Search for garage conversion building regs to see the sort of areas you may need to upgrade. Is the property detached? You may need a party wall agreement if there's a shared wall.

It will 1000% be load bearing - I’ve built 1000s of new builds over the years
if it’s a new build then the garage floor will be lower and will require building up and insulating

getting permission to convert from the developer will depend on many factors and usually a small fee is payable

you’d be better off since the door is there anyway in partitioning off the garage so that space becomes a utility and you can clear you WM DW TD from your main kitchen to make some space

This is happens when you try to do things on the cheap with no experience.

Get a Structural Engineer in and check if you need planning permission as well.

Is there room in the back garden for a bike shed? If there is I would convert the whole of the garage into a room with large window to the front.
I'm not a great fan of first floor lounges, as you don't get direct access to the garden. In fact that house looks top heavy with lots of bedrooms for what is quite a small disconnected amount of living space.

You'd need planning permission due to likely covenants on a new build. It will likely be a load bearing wall so you'd have to get proper support in the wall. The floor in the garage is usually lower so you'd need to raise it. Not an easy job.

Thanks to everyone who has continued to post.

We actually love the house - we have an upstairs living room now and can't imagine not having one going forward - who wants to always be able to see and hear what everyone is doing in the house at all times! We need 2 offices as we both work remotely, so the middle floor is really ideal. We also love a new build, having lived in much older houses previously which are riddled with various problems (though new builds are not problem free, of course). This sort of house is going up in every tiny corner available in our local area, and they sell for around £900k (sometimes more) so I think townhouse living is becoming more attractive generally.

Despite ticking many boxes, the size of the kitchen diner is really an issue. For us, it is a big one; there is no chance of having a large amount of people in that room for a meal, which is a fairly frequent occurrence for us. it's just big enough for day-to-day comfort, in our opinion.

For anyone remotely interested, we knocked on the doors of the neighbours to ask some questions and someone has done exactly what we have been thinking. So totally possible, it would seem. They paid about £15k to do the work fairly recently, which seems reasonable to us, plus kitchen. So, we are going to pursue it and see where we get too!

That sounds reassuring OP, we’re considering knocking into our double garage to extend our kitchen, 1970s house so all the other rooms downstairs are a good size but the kitchen is disproportionately small. Best of luck with it all