Garage Conversions in Sunderland

Extra usable internal space normally helps, though it depends on the local market and whether off street parking is lost. A conversion with a building control completion certificate is far easier to sell than one without.

The old door and frame come out, and the existing slab is assessed. Many garage slabs sit lower than the house floor and have no damp proof membrane, so a new build up over the top is common.

It is once it is done properly. A garage floor and walls are typically uninsulated and often damp, so the build up underneath is what decides whether the finished room is usable in January.

They can. Sunderland sits on the edge of the Durham coalfield and takes in the site of the former Wearmouth Colliery, so parts of the city fall inside a Coal Authority Development High Risk Area. We raise it at the quote stage rather than after the digger arrives, so you know whether an investigation or an assessment is likely to be needed.

Yes. The opening is infilled with blockwork and a matching external face, with a window or French doors set in as you prefer. Getting the brick match right across that panel is the part that makes the result look deliberate.

Sunderland comes under Sunderland City Council for both planning and building control. That is where a building regulations application is made and where the inspector who signs the work off comes from. Building regulations approval covering insulation, damp proofing, ventilation and fire separation is what they will be looking for.

Yes, though a detached outbuilding conversion has different requirements from an integral one, particularly around insulation, heating and whether it is intended for occasional or habitable use.

Possibly, depending on exactly where the property sits. Sunderland has a number of designated conservation areas, Ashbrooke and Roker Park among them, and if your property sits inside one the council will want to see materials and window details before anything visible from the street changes. If your property is affected, the design is shaped around that from the start rather than revised afterwards.

Yes. Alongside Sunderland we regularly carry out garage conversions in Washington, Houghton-le-Spring, Boldon Colliery and across the wider North East, working from our base in Blaydon-on-Tyne.

All of them. Around Roker and Ashbrooke the stock is mostly Victorian and Edwardian terraces around Ashbrooke, Millfield and Roker, and further out Sunderland has post war and later estates out toward Doxford Park, Silksworth and Farringdon. The right approach depends far more on the age and construction of the individual property than on the town.