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For planning purposes a detached garage is an outbuilding, and the conditions that decide whether an outbuilding is permitted development in each of the four nations are set out in the outbuildings and sheds guide on this site. Do not assume they are met: the height limits, the proximity-to-boundary rules and the proportion of the garden that may be covered all catch garages more often than sheds, because a garage is bigger and usually sits near a boundary.

An attached garage is not an outbuilding at all. It is an extension to the house, and it is judged against the rules for extensions and counts against whatever allowance the property still has, which is covered in the extensions guide. Flats and maisonettes do not have householder permitted development rights, and a property in a conservation area, in a National Park or subject to an Article 4 direction may have had rights removed. The local planning authority is the place to confirm, before a builder orders blocks.

Building control is a separate system with separate answers. In England and Wales the small detached building exemption in Schedule 2 to the Building Regulations 2010 takes some detached garages out of the regulations entirely, and the conditions attached to it are explained in the sheds guide rather than repeated here; an attached or integral garage is not exempt. In Scotland the equivalent question is whether a building warrant is needed, and the answer comes from the local authority's building standards service. Northern Ireland runs its own regulations through district councils.

This is the specification that most distinguishes a properly built attached garage from a badly built one, and it is stated plainly. Paragraph 5.6 of Approved Document B Volume 1, in the 2019 edition incorporating the 2020 and 2022 amendments, provides that if a garage is attached to or forms an integral part of a dwellinghouse, the garage should be separated from the rest of the dwellinghouse by fire resisting construction of minimum REI 30 — and Diagram 5.1 makes clear that the wall and any floor between the garage and the dwellinghouse are assessed from the garage side.

The connecting door gets its own provision because of what people keep in garages. Paragraph 5.7 requires that where a door is provided between the dwellinghouse and the garage, one of two conditions is met: either the garage floor is laid so that it falls away from the door to the outside, allowing fuel spills to flow away, or the door opening is a minimum of 100mm above the level of the garage floor. Diagram 5.1 adds that the door itself should have a minimum fire resistance of E 30 Sa and be fitted with a self-closing device.

Those three requirements — REI 30 separation, a falling floor or a raised threshold, and a self-closing fire door — are cheap to build in and expensive to add later. They are also the detail that most often goes missing when a garage is built by a general builder without a building control inspection, and the detail a surveyor will look for when the house is sold. If you are being quoted for an attached or integral garage, ask which of the two floor options is being used and confirm it appears on the drawings.

Masonry is the default: a single skin of blockwork for a detached garage, or a cavity wall where the garage is attached, insulated or likely to be converted later. Single-skin construction is cheap and quick, but it will not take heavy fixings, it will not keep condensation off the inside face, and it makes a later conversion to habitable space a rebuild rather than an upgrade. If there is any chance the garage will become a room within ten years, building it in cavity construction from the start is the cheapest decision in the whole project.

Timber frame is faster and warmer for its thickness, and is common on garages with a room over. Steel-framed and sectional concrete garages sit at the manufactured end of the market: quick to erect, cheaper, and limited in what they can carry or become. Roofs divide into pitched — tiled or slated, matching the house, with the option of storage or a room in the roof — and flat, which is cheaper and lower but relies entirely on the quality of the covering.

The floor deserves more thought than it usually gets. A garage slab that will be used as a workshop wants a power-floated finish and a sealer; one that will take a car wants a fall towards the door; one that adjoins a house needs the fall or threshold arrangement described above. Retrofitting any of those means breaking out concrete, so it is worth spending ten minutes on the floor specification before the pour.

The main drivers are size, wall construction and how the garage relates to the house. Quotations move with the foundation depth the ground requires, whether walls are single skin or cavity, the roof type and covering, whether the garage is detached or attached and therefore whether fire-separating construction and a compliant connecting door are needed, the slab specification and any fall, the drainage arrangements for roof and surface water, the door type and whether it is automated, the electrical work, and access for deliveries and a mixer. Taking down an old garage first, and dealing with what it was built from, is a separate line worth pricing on its own.

LokalMatch handles introductions and nothing else. Set out the size of garage you want, whether it will be attached to the house and what the site looks like, once, with your postcode, and builders covering your area can respond. Homeowners pay nothing to use LokalMatch and pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not build anything, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend any builder who gets in touch, so checking their building control arrangements, insurance and references remains your job.