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Garage conversion

Jib

Jib

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Joined
Mar 12, 2021
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1,271
Location
Northamptonshire
On Tuesday work started on our garage conversion! The new room will not only mean space for a couple of extra pins but will also mean not having to get them up and downstairs when it’s time for a change. The garage is currently 6.09m x 3m so will be abit smaller than that when done. About 2m at the back is reserved for putting back the multi gym and bike that were in the garage before, which leaves me about 4m x 3m for pins. I was going to stick to 4 machines but we all know how that goes and I’m now going to be fitting in 5 if all goes to plan.
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Phase 1 was getting permission from the builders, it’s a new build property and there was a 5 year covenant on changing it. Luckily the builders were very good to us and agreed that if we matched the brick we could go ahead. We got 3 quotes, can’t remember now if the guy we picked was in the middle or the most expensive but he made us most at ease and had better solutions to things than the others.

Phase 2 was getting a big shed and moving all the garage rubbish to it! The shed took over 6 months to arrive and got delayed twice, luckily it finally turned up about a month before the builder was ready to start.

Phase 3 - starting work. The skip turned up Monday and work started on Tuesday.
Day 1 - floor joists and taking the ceiling down. Usually they run floor joists front to back but I asked for them width ways for a little extra support, they also put them at 450 intervals instead of 600.
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Day 2 - Finishing the floor joists and putting on the floor boards. The building inspector came day 1 or 2 and approved everything, only one portion of one wall needs extra insulation
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Day 3 - Sparky came to do first fix. Plumber was also meant to come but got delayed
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Day 4 - plumber came, we’re having a radiator added to our system in the new room and moving an existing radiator in the hall for the doorway. New ceiling also went up and bricks toothed out
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And that’s where we’re at right now. Really looking forward to it being complete and also seeing what mistakes we made 😆
 
I had to get builders and planning permission as it was changing the front of the property. Assuming your council didn't require this?

Looks good!

Also you can never have enough plugs!

Are they putting them on a separate circuit for you?

What kind of flooring you going with?
 
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s000m said:
I had to get builders and planning permission as it was changing the front of the property. Assuming your council didn't require this?

Looks good!

Also you can never have enough plugs!

Are they putting them on a separate circuit for you?

What kind of flooring you going with?
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We’ve got 7 double sockets and 1 single so hopefully that’ll be plenty! On a separate breaker if that’s the same as separate circuit?

Garage conversions fall under permitted development for our council if you dont extend the footprint and aren’t in one of the few restricted areas. We have written confirmation from them that our permitted development rights remained in tact, so no further permission was needed.

Flooring I thought about a lot, the rest of downstairs is amtico and we thought about matching that but I wasn’t sure how echoey the room’s going to be. In the end decided on carpet tiles, easy to replace individual ones if something happens to one, should reduce the echo slightly and fairly cheap!
 
s000m said:
I had to get builders and planning permission as it was changing the front of the property. Assuming your council didn't require this?

Looks good!

Also you can never have enough plugs!

Are they putting them on a separate circuit for you?

What kind of flooring you going with?
Click to expand...

I think there are 3 scenarios in which planning permission for a garage conversion would be required. One is change to the street appearance (even without change to the footprint), the second is change to the footprint, and three is if the garage has to come down due to foundation works being required, even if the footprint is being retained.
 
Dubi said:
I think there are 3 scenarios in which planning permission for a garage conversion would be required. One is change to the street appearance (even without change to the footprint), the second is change to the footprint, and three is if the garage has to come down due to foundation works being required, even if the footprint is being retained.
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It depends on your council. We are replacing the garage door with a window so changing the street appearance but that does not require planning permission here, only requires that your permitted development rights are in tact.
 
Jib said:
It depends on your council. We are replacing the garage door with a window so changing the street appearance but that does not require planning permission here, only requires that your permitted development rights are in tact.
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Yes, it will depend on where you live, but perhaps I should clarify what I meant by appearance, which was not bay/garage door but roof line, for example, overhang from existing flush.
 
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Pick Holder said:
Also hope you are getting a vertical radiator as you do not want to waste space where another pin could go!
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You came over just in time before the madness began! Not a vertical rad but it’s going on the opposite wall to the pins, technically a machine could go there but I decided I wanted to be able to get the glass off each without having to shuffle other machines. We shall see if I regret that, 5 should be enough for 1 person right guys? Guys?! Asking in the wrong place 😉
 
If you have 4m along one length there is enough room to have facing pins and get glass off without moving pins. Based on bally Williams.
 
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Asiapinball said:
If you have 4m along one length there is enough room to have facing pins and get glass off without moving pins. Based on bally Williams.
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Yeah they would have to be across the window one side and then the opposite side would need 1 less pin as a corridor to the back of the garage gym. Hmm got me thinking though lol could mean an extra 2 pins if they are really close… ah no wait that wouldnt work because of where the door is, good thinking though!
 
Asiapinball said:
And the formula is

correct number of pins =
number of pins you have + 1
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😆 yeah that’s why I set the limit to 5 and being able to get the glass off, I could fit more but I’d always want one more so I have to put a limit somewhere! Plus after the conversion and getting all 5 machines, finances will mean one in one out for a while anyway
 
JAG555 said:
In all seriousness, I would think about having a good amount of space in there. I have had mine bursting with machines and to be honest, less is more and for me it made playing them more enjoyable.
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Space was why I was thinking 4 originally but 5 will still mean 10cm between them, which is just enough for me to get in between each machine without a belt buckle on! They’ll all still be in a single row too which I think will look nicest
 
JAG555 said:
In all seriousness, I would think about having a good amount of space in there. I have had mine bursting with machines and to be honest, less is more and for me it made playing them more enjoyable.
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When I had 3 Pins there were times when I couldn't decide which one to play so ended up not playing any of them. Having 2 and even just 1 meant I enjoyed them more.

With my VPin I decide which game I'm going to play before I switch it on otherwise I spend 10 minutes flicking through the menus unable to pick one.
 
JAG555 said:
In all seriousness, I would think about having a good amount of space in there. I have had mine bursting with machines and to be honest, less is more and for me it made playing them more enjoyable.
Click to expand...

Pre proper games room I had 7 pins and 2 twin sit down drivers in my conservatory about 5.5M x 5M, it was truly a PITA to play on some and work on most. Yes less IS often more.
 
Marvello said:
When I had 3 Pins there were times when I couldn't decide which one to play so ended up not playing any of them. Having 2 and even just 1 meant I enjoyed them more.

With my VPin I decide which game I'm going to play before I switch it on otherwise I spend 10 minutes flicking through the menus unable to pick one.
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With the 2 I have atm I tend to play the same pin for a week or more, I rarely switch to a different machine in the same play session if I'm alone. I'm usually trying to get a certain goal or something and then when I get it I switch machines the next day. I just find that sometimes I don't adapt very quickly to a different machine so that's how I like playing. So I only really need to decide which to play when I'm switching.

I may end up deciding 5 is too many and that 1 or more isn't getting enough play and go down to 4 but I'm already wondering how I'll decide what has to go between the 5 when it's time for something new!
 
Wayne J said:
Put the sockets at waist height, rather than the usual floor level, will make things much easier.
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They're at floor level just because if the room's used for something else I think higher ones would look odd. If it'd been a dedicated shed or outbuilding I'd put them higher but as it's part of the house I thought that was best. It was something I wasn't 100% on though so I may regret that later.
 
JAG555 said:
Why is that though? I never understood the reasoning behind having them up higher.
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I'd rather not want to be crawling on the floor, underneath machines which potentially have other stuff stored under there as well, just to get to the socket.

In your living room they tend to be low down purely for aesthetic reasons (or the feed comes from below the floor), aesthetically they'll be hidden by the pins anyway, plus from the pics the feed is clearly coming from the ceiling - it'll save the sparky 2ft of cable per socket
 
That entry hall looks tight to get the machine in then manoeuvre it round? Before you fit a door why not consider a slider into the cavity. You’ll gain a lot of space. Whatever number is enough - it isn’t. I’ve got 5 in as a max plus 1 tombstoned in the garage and one in the utility set up. If I were doing the same as you I’d be putting vertical blinds on the windows and putting machines against that area too.Obvs depends on layout/other machines/glass removal etc . Good luck though
 
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Think the hallway is bigger than it looks in the photo, we've got 3 machines in the front door and further down the hall to the lounge and 1 widebody out the lounge, down the hall and out the front door, so getting a machine in, past the front door, shut the front door and then into the new room should be fine. It's actually really wide there if you look at the width of the front door, then there's space either side of it too, coat and shoe rack is freestanding so gets moved for machines
 
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