Ballpark cost for a garage?

OpenToSuggestions

OpenToSuggestions

OpenToSuggestions

Soldato
Joined
5 Aug 2006
Posts
11,374
Location
Derbyshire
Hey all.

Viewed a house today in an area I like. It has potential and feel it could be one I put an offer in for.

However, the detached garage is pebble dash concrete with a corrugated steel roof. The garage is absolutely shagged. It has major leaks and handfuls of concrete can be pulled out the walls. I would use the space, probably for a car, as I would bodge the roof with something cheap like a plastic sheet as a temporary fix. In the medium term it requires pulling down and a new one put up.

Obviously I would expect the seller to consider that the garage requires a digger driving through it. All the neighbours have had new brick garages built and they look good.

What would a garage cost, for a decent size single garage:
- Concrete with flat roof
- Brick with flat roof
- Brick with tile roof (apex)

I am afraid I am no builder, nor know of any.
 
Call some people up for quotes. When we were pricing ours up the prices ranged from $35k up to $75k although that was for a double garage to slightly higher specs than you've mentioned.
 
It all depends on location and preparation. If you can re-use foundations/slab from previous garage, then you can demolish existing structure, grab a basic ready-to-go prefab concrete or timber garage and erect it in couple of days for less than 3-3.5 grand. Brick work usually comes up to £250 per sqm I think (depending where you are it can go as low as £180 and as high as £350), so a 3x6m garage with simple roof could easily start at £5k, raw, without door, leccy, insulation etc. If it needs new slab and foundations, that complicates things further.

That said however, if slab is good and you have a good idea about diy, read up on timber framing, get some mates, hire a skip (approx £240 per container), one weekend to take old garage apart, then get truckload of 2x4 C16 structural treated stud work timber, enough 18mm OSB3 boards to go around, cheapest shiplap cladding you can find, couple of rolls of Tyvek, roll of DPC, enough bricks for two courses, good 90mm framing nail gun, few cheap jigsaws, professional grade spirit level, the biggest tin of Jotun Visir and Jotun Butinox1 you can find online and a case of beer and in two weekends you'll have the best timber cladded garage in the hood, plus legendary facebook photos of your mates monkeying around? Roughly £1.5k all in and priceless memories.
 
Avoid a flat roof, expense every few years or so to have it refelted

Definitely brick to match house, or block rendered, & a tile apex roof will last 50 years or so before it will need redoing.

Don't skimp on the width of the garage door, seen too many garages, when you have to fold the mirrors in on the car & it's still a tight squeeze getting in.

Make the garage if possible wide enough to open the car doors 3/4 open at least. nothing worst having to shuffle to get out of garage.

EDIT: If you laid a new concrete floor,1:80 fall on floor from back of garage to front garage door, allow any water, etc to run out.
 
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Thanks for the replies everyone :).
Are ones with a flat roof really that bad?

[FnG]magnolia;24073818 said:
Call some people up for quotes.
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Thought about that but I heard (no idea where from) that the quotes come in very high, then are suddenly magically 50% less when haggled.
 
Flat roof avoid them, in my opinion yes.

Got one here, done about 5 years ago, water has got under felt, decking has got wet, then it froze, which has now pushed the felt up.:mad:

Have covered whole roof with a tarpaulin, until the warmer weather.
 
Flat roof is bad, I seriously do not know why people keep installing flat roofs, stupidest idea ever.

Flat roof with an 10-30 deg angle is fine.
Even better are the thick adhesive underlay type, I really don't trust torched on felt to last through repeated warming/frost.
The one I put down has been fine for 13 years so far, est 25 year life.

Admittedly it looks slightly odd, I've never seen a felt roof done at an angle, but I did it to avoid standing water and so far the theory has worked out.

.
 
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Flat roof is fine, especially for a garage. Make sure if you go down the route of using felt for a flat roof that the roofer uses a 3 layer system; 3b underlay, 2mil then a mineral finish.
These types of roof are usually product guaranteed for between 10-20 years depending on the felt used. Typically they will last longer than that if they've been layed correctly.

Nightglow I think your experience with the flat roof is down to a poor job rather than the roof itself. No way should a properly laid roof last for only 5 years.
 
I suppose the point is - there is no reason to do flat roof on detached garage unless it's a planning issue. It doesn't look better, doesn't save any considerable amount of money, especially not in long term, but it's harder to do properly and leaves less space and "air" inside, so doing it it's down to purely visual preference.

We live in fantastic times, you can buy ready parts for gable roofs, some sheeting, few rolls of membrane, self adhesive bitumen shingles - pitched roof done in a day and as long as you roughly follow instructions it's almost impossible to screw it up and make it leak. If you don't like the look of it, you can do "shed" angled roof front to back with break on the front, so it goes sharp up, then long slope down. No complications, no maintenance, much easier to make watertight than flat roof (which is by design like keeping shallow swimming pool on top of your roof all year long).
 
Do people still use felt for flat roofs? :O

Use single ply membrane and you won't ever need to replace them.
 
LOAM said:
Do people still use felt for flat roofs? :O
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Sadly yes.:eek:

There are better alternatives available GRP fibre,Firestone EPDM Rubber Membrane, both are suppose to last at least 50 years, there are other materials available for flat roofs.

But, if tiles were an option, then I would go with them as a first choice, purely for aesthetics.
 
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Nightglow said:
But, if tiles were an option, then I would go with them as a first choice, purely for aesthetics.
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Oh god we are into context, I believe a well done flat roof has its place but I sort of agree that for a stand alone detached garage then yeah tile it unless doing so would leave it vastly out of context with what's around it.
 
LOAM said:
Oh god we are into context, I believe a well done flat roof has its place but I sort of agree that for a stand alone detached garage then yeah tile it unless doing so would leave it vastly out of context with what's around it.
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Sorry Loam, can't beat a bit of 'context on a Monday morning.:D
 
There's nothing wrong with a flat roof and built properly should last 25 yrs minimum, the key is you can build a shoddy pitched roof and it'll probably not leak but one tiny rough or dodgy area on a flat roof lets it down.

There should be some sort of fall on a flat roof, NHBC demand falls on flat roofs and we have to do a lot of convincing with new roofs for the NHBC to let us lay a true flat roof but usually these are on apartments with concrete top floors.

I have a flat roof over my garage and kitchen which was redone three years ago, the valley constantly leaks, I've had it done three times now and it still leaks, it's because I share the roof with my neighbour who's is the original and leaks like a sieve, he doesn't care because his is over his garage where we have converted mine.

I think I'm going to Kemperol the valley in the summer as it's spray / hand applied and forms a solid membrane over anything.
 
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