These must be ungreen as they put into an envelope a gaping thermal hole which is difficult to insulate properly, and even if insulated perfectly, which is unlikely, still looses far more heat than it ought to and radically more than if it was not there. It is also exceedingly difficult to air seal too allowing air leakages into the heart of the building. Worse still they are almost never used to keep a cars in. Often they are converted to become a part of the house at huge expense and waste any effort that went in to insulating them in the first place.

No more integral garages?

The basic problem, the bit that is ungreen, is that the presence of an integral garage greatly and unnecessarily increases the surface area of the walls and therefore the heat loss of the building as a whole.

Regardless of the green-ness, I won't have another integral garage. It is far too easy to open the door and put things in that: should not have been acquired, ought to be recycled, and are often a source of danger. How many people declare to an insurer when getting a quote, that their car is garaged, but it never/seldom is. You become a liar as well!

Yes but that is a different argument to the heat loss one

Now that could be a green idea.

Is Chris's garage integral or attached then --- surely attached is different from integral? Attached is not part of the structure is it?

I think it is different. The thermal envelope runs between the house and an attached garage, where as an integral garage protrudes into this the thermal envelope and it becomes uneconomically shaped and many technical and ungreen problems result.

Sorry i should have said juts into the thermal envelope deforming its shape. The point is that the more unwieldy its shape is the greater the unnecessary heat loss is, and therefore integral garages are ungreen.

What about these 3 storey townhouses that are going up all over the place? Most of them seem to have integral garages on the groundfloor with a room behind and a hallway and staircase to one side with living accomodation on two floors above. This is exactly the situation Tony is refering to I guess. They look ugly to my eyes never mind the heat loss concerns.

I'd prefer to see no garages, just a communal parking area to one side of the site, then the development becomes pedestrian and child friendly plus there are fewer roads to build and less tarmac and more gardens (plus the homeowner gets to take a little exercise getting from the car to the front door with his/her shopping....).

just to throw a spanner in the works......surely the only real justification for an integral is to be able to use the vehicle engine as a combined heat and power plant over night to charge up the energy storage of the house. what a shame that no car manufacturer has seen that potential yet.

I have an integral garage and I'd like to improve it's insulation. Some walls adjoin the house and some are external. I was thinking of adding sheets of insulation to the internal wall. Then I realised this could cause the interior to freeze in winter, so I'd prefer to insulate the external wall. I'd welcome suggesions on how best to do this, materials to use, snags to avoid.

The doors are timber. I was thinking of lining them, and the external walls, with Celotex or something similar. The ceiling is already insulated. Insulation is normally approved for use in cavities and loft spaces, not garages, and so I was wondering if there could be problems using it that way. Dampness, fire regulations, anything like that.

A book I had a while back on solar houses in northeren climates reffered to some research that supported the use of unheated space (porches, american style internal garages, even storerooms) to act a buffer between the heated space and the exterior, but they had to be insulated as well as being thermally isolated from the living space.

had to do with heat loss being proprtional to temperature difference on either side of a wall, and it reccomended planning these on the northern aspect of the house where there was minimal solar gain