how far to build garage from house (blocking light)

[rodgling]

I'm looking at building a garage on my drive, which will be in front of my lodger's living room. The drive is pretty big, so if I built (say) a 6x6m garage, that would leave a 4.7m gap to the house, which I would think would not block much light into the front room. I'm tempted to go bigger, say, 6x8m, but will a 2.7m gap be enough, or is the front room going to be very dark and unpleasant? The current view is into the street so it's no big loss in terms of view.

To a certain extent it's not a huge issue as that room is used by my lodger, but on the other hand I don't want to ruin my house / make it hard to find lodgers.

How much gap is it sensible to leave?

[kambites]

It depends on all sorts of things - the roof design, the direction the house faces, the colour of the new wall... if it's a north facing window you might even find that building a white wall a few meters away from it increases the light levels inside.

Your best bet really is to get an architect's advice.

Edited by kambites on Monday 20th March 11:21

[rodgling]

It's a north facing room, and I agree that the facing wall will probably want to be white.

I've asked an architect for advice also, but any first-hand experience from on here would be useful I'm sure.

[blueg33]

What you need is a Rights To Light Surveyor. Whilst your lodger may not have any RTL, such a surveyor can model the impact on the light in the room

I wonder of there is any freeware available?

[Steve Campbell]

Why not get yourself a 2.4m chunk of plywood (or 2) for a few quid, paint it white and prop it up at appropriate distances from window to give you an idea.

[rodgling]

Steve Campbell said:

Why not get yourself a 2.4m chunk of plywood (or 2) for a few quid, paint it white and prop it up at appropriate distances from window to give you an idea.

Yes, also a valid strategy, might end up doing this.

[mikeiow]

A smart architect we once used pointed out that light comes from above.
I know, sounds daft, and/or obvious......we were concerned over something blocking some light, and he was right: provided there is sky visible to window, then the light will get in ;-)

Obviously the view of a wall may not be great...but you could soften that with planting of some sort....& clearly neighbours would get uppity over views being ruined etc, but provided you haven't wedged it in, I doubt any lodger would care one jot!

[blueg33]

mikeiow said:

A smart architect we once used pointed out that light comes from above.
I know, sounds daft, and/or obvious......we were concerned over something blocking some light, and he was right: provided there is sky visible to window, then the light will get in ;-)

Obviously the view of a wall may not be great...but you could soften that with planting of some sort....& clearly neighbours would get uppity over views being ruined etc, but provided you haven't wedged it in, I doubt any lodger would care one jot!

Architect wasn't that smart. Much light comes at an angle (if it came from above we would all have skylights not windows), also plenty of light is reflected.

Rights to Light cases would also demonstrate that your architect was wrong, that's why we use Rights to Light professionals not architects to deal with these things.