Garage conversion checklist: from first measurement to handover

A useful garage conversion checklist covers five stages: understand the existing building, define the room, check planning and technical approvals, compare a detailed quotation, and record the work at handover. Use it as a conversation tool with designers and contractors, not as permission to skip a site inspection.

Before asking for prices

• Measure length, width, floor level, headroom and door openings.
• Photograph the floor, walls, roof, damp marks, drains, consumer unit and outside elevations.
• Decide what the room must do and what storage or parking will be lost.
• Record every external change, service, structural opening and accessibility need.
• Find original planning decisions, conditions, listed status and local designations.

Before signing a quote

• Confirm the planning and building-control route for the nation and property.
• Check the proposed floor, damp, insulation, ventilation, fire, structure and service details.
• Compare inclusions, exclusions, provisional sums, taxes, waste, protection and making good.
• Ask who prepares drawings, makes applications, books inspections and supplies certificates.
• Check contractor identity, insurance, references, written warranty and payment stages.

During construction

• Photograph concealed work before it is covered.
• Record changes caused by opening-up and agree their price before proceeding.
• Keep approvals, inspection notes, product information and test certificates together.
• Check that vents, cables, pipes, fire-stopping and insulation are not improvised at the last minute.

At handover

• Walk the room against the agreed scope and make a written snagging list.
• Obtain completion or regularisation paperwork and competent-person certificates where relevant.
• Collect guarantees, manuals, ventilation settings, electrical records and final drawings.
• Update your home insurance and keep the project file for future sale or repair.

The best checklist is the one that becomes evidence: dates, decisions, drawings, approvals and the final scope.

Turn the checklist into a project record

Give each decision an owner and a date: who checked planning, who designed the floor, who notified building control, who will issue electrical certificates and who accepts variations? Add photographs and inspection notes as the work progresses. This avoids the common handover problem where everyone remembers the conversation differently but nobody can show the agreed scope. A short, dated record is more useful than a long list that is never updated.