Tell me about wooden garages...

Its a myth that planning is any different for wooden buildings. If you need planning to put a concrete garage you'll need planning to put up a wooden one.

Check with the planning department of your local council, they are really helpful people and they do this for a living. They can give far better advice on your specific issues than some random fellows on the internet. With the best will in the world planning laws change and there are some local variations with how they are worked.

The basic jist is that to make the planning process easier for folks like you and me a few years back the government passed new laws allowing "reasonable curtilage development" which to you and me means that you can put up a shed, garage, kids tree house, summer house, band stand, pagoda, whatever on your own property with certain caveats but without any planning permission.

What you will still need on a large garage (I think its garages over 80 CUBIC metres) is building regulations approval.

This is far better than planning permission because unlike planning where all your neighbours, local councillors and general busy bodies having their say the building regs is just between you and the borough surveyor and he's just making sure via his team of building inspectors that what you put up is safe and legal.

You will be charged for this and when I did mine there was a sliding scale depending on size of building and my fees were something in the range of £240 or £260. Again your council may charge £5 or £5000 for the same thing, so ask.

I got my garage from www.warwickbuildings.co.uk and I can't say enough good things about them.

I have had a 1968 Plymouth with part of the rear quarter panel stripped to bare metal, in the garage, unprotected, over a British winter, for 6 months and it has no sign of surface rust on it. That is my #1 reason for going with wood garage. NO RUST.

There are a bunch of other reasons, environmentally they are better than concrete, the look nicer, they don't echo so you neighbours won't hear so much what you are up to, thermal properties are supposed to be better too, etc.

One thing to remember to add to the costs is that if you are within 3 metres of a property boundary with a wooden building you need to fire retard it. I lined mine with Gyproc board which is similar to what you put behind gas fires. Again, if you need to do this sort of thing you need to agree it with the building inspector first. No point spending money on stuff because I said thats what was OK 5 years ago in Nottingham only to find its not OK where you live today.

People moan about building inspectors, planning offices, etc. but I have always found they give advice free and if you follow the advice you are golden. Its generally people who try pull one over on them or think they know better and try do something else who end up in tears/court or whatever.

FWIW here is mine: 28'x20'

I've got a timber garage it is very warm and dry, I paint,weld and make lot's of noise and nobody complains.
Mine was all inter-locking construction, it's this one.....
www.garageandworkshop.co.uk/spec_sheets/oklahoma.html

brick built is pricey.

Also brick is wider than wood so you lose more internal space for the (exterior) dimensions of the build. Every mm counts with my big cars...