What does garage conversion brickwork in Barnsley involve?
The front of a garage is a hole with a lintel over it. Turning that into part of the house means building a proper wall in the hole, and the difference between a good one and a bad one is whether you can still see where the door was.
The giveaway is a straight vertical line down each side, where a panel of new bricks has simply been stood inside the old opening. We avoid that by toothing in: bricks are cut out of the existing wall on alternate courses, and the new courses are laid into the gaps. Old and new are then one piece of brickwork, bonded together, with the horizontal joints running through from the house onto the new front. You can see the toothed sides in the first photograph above.
Details carry across the same way. The house in the photographs has a sloped plinth course near the ground, and it continues along the new front so the wall reads as original.
Will the new bricks match the house?
That is the first thing we look at. The size has to be right, because older bricks are often a different size from the ones made today and the courses will not line up otherwise. Then the colour and the texture, then the mortar colour and the shape of the joint.
An exact match is not always available, because many bricks from the 1970s and 80s are no longer made. A close one usually is. Be ready for new bricks to look cleaner and brighter than the wall beside them for a while, as you can see in our own photographs. Weather takes the newness off, and the bond and the joint are what make it disappear in the end.
Do you need planning permission or Building Regulations?
Planning permission is not usually needed to convert a garage, as long as the work is internal and the building is not being made bigger. The exception to check for is a newer estate or a conservation area where that right has been removed, sometimes so the garage stays available for parking. The Planning Portal explains it, and Barnsley Council will confirm for your address.
Building Regulations approval is normally needed, because a garage is becoming a room people live in. For the front wall that means the inspector will want to know what the new wall is standing on, how it is damp proofed and insulated, and what is carrying the brickwork above the opening. It is worth having building control involved before the door comes out, so the front is built once.
Send those photos on WhatsApp to 07712 491089, or ring Harry on the same number. Harry or Josh will come and measure up, and the quote is free and priced for your garage, not from a list. The whole sequence from this job is on our work page, and if the conversion is part of a bigger build, we also do the brickwork for extensions.
