Garage construction in Batumi

We handle garage construction in Batumi the same way as a house: the garage is fitted to the plot, the foundations are designed for the ground and the estimate is broken down by stage. A single garage is usually 4×6 m, a double 6×6 m. The main decisions are made before the foundations: whether the garage stands on its own or adjoins the house, whether it needs an inspection pit, and what door and roof it will have.

Detached or attached garage

An attached garage saves one wall and gives you a dry route into the house. We make the wall it shares with the living space solid, with no vent openings into the house, and the door into the house metal, with a threshold, a seal and a door closer, so that the smell of petrol doesn't get into the hallway.

When a garage is added to a house that is already built, we don't tie the new foundations rigidly to the old ones. Fresh foundations settle in their own way, and over time a crack would open along the joint, so we leave a movement joint between them, and the structural engineer decides how to connect the two volumes with the seismic load in mind.

Foundations, floor, walls and roof

Under a masonry garage we lay a strip foundation or a slab, and the ground survey decides which. The floor is concrete, on compacted hardcore and waterproofing, with a hardened top layer: an ordinary screed dusts and crumbles under the wheels, and oil soaks into it for good. We give the floor a fall towards the door or a floor drain, so that water from a wet car doesn't stand in a puddle, and we set the floor itself higher than the area in front of the entrance, otherwise in a downpour water from the road will come inside.

We build the walls of aerated concrete or pumice blocks, with a reinforced ring beam as the calculation requires, and render them on the outside. The first course sits on a concrete upstand above the floor, so that water from the wheels doesn't stand against the blocks. A garage on a steel frame with sandwich panels is quicker and cheaper: it goes up in a few weeks, but by the sea the frame needs corrosion protection and an inspection once a year.

Over an attached garage we usually make the roof flat, with a fall to an outlet, so that it doesn't run up against the upper-floor windows, and if you want a terrace on the roof, the structural engineer designs the slab for it separately. A detached garage next to a house with a tiled roof looks better with a pitched roof, and the arguments for both options are set out in our comparison of a flat roof and a pitched roof.

Garage door and opener

Most often we fit a sectional door: the leaf, made of insulated panels, rises up under the ceiling and takes up no space in front of the garage. Above the opening it needs headroom for the shaft and springs, and under the ceiling a clear strip for the tracks, so we put lights and shelves to the side. In block masonry we frame the opening with a cast concrete or steel frame and fix the tracks and opener to that, not to the blocks. For a low garage there are systems that need less headroom, but they have to go into the design from the start.

A sliding door needs a clear stretch of wall outside that is longer than the opening, side-hinged doors need space in front of the entrance, and in the wind a leaf is hard to hold. Roller doors are compact, but they keep in almost no heat and they rattle, so we use them for a utility garage used mainly for storage. By the sea the springs and rollers of a door are lubricated once a year.

The opener of a sectional door is fixed to the ceiling and opens it from a remote control or from your phone, and it can be included in the scenes of a smart home. If the garage has no second door, we fit an emergency release lock on the outside, so that the door can be opened by hand during a power cut. Some openers have a backup battery, and it is worth having if the house stands empty for long periods while you are away.

Inspection pits and high groundwater

In low-lying areas by the sea the groundwater is close to the surface in places, and after prolonged rain it rises even higher. A pit in ground like this works like a well: water finds the joints, damp rises from the bottom, and the garage never dries out. So we decide on a pit only after the ground survey, and we take the water level from the wettest season. If in the rainy months the water rises above the bottom of the future pit, we advise against building one.

If you do need a pit, we make it as a cast-in-place concrete box with waterproofing and a sump for a drainage pump with a float switch. In wet ground water pushes an empty box upwards, and the structural engineer checks this separately. The pit is covered with boards you can walk on, the light inside runs at low voltage, and before working in it the pit is aired: petrol vapour settles at the bottom. For the owner of an ordinary car it is usually simpler to do without a pit: the oil is changed on a lift at a service centre, and the garage keeps a flat floor and room for shelving.

Ventilation and damp

A closed garage without ventilation quickly gets damp in this climate. After a downpour a car brings water in on its wheels and body, the concrete releases it into the air, condensation collects on the cold door and ceiling, and the tools on the shelves rust. The minimum we put in is an air inlet grille low down by the door and an extract grille high up on the opposite wall, so that air passes through the whole space.

In an attached garage and in a garage with a workshop we add an extractor fan with a timer or a humidity sensor. An insulated door and ceiling reduce condensation, and on the coast a garage usually doesn't need heating.

Electrics and lighting

We run a dedicated circuit to the garage from the house consumer unit, and underground the cable lies in protective conduit. Inside we fit a small consumer unit of its own with circuit breakers and a residual current device (RCD): with a wet floor and a metal door, we don't hand over the electrics without one. Sockets go above the splash zone, with covers, by the workbench and by the door, so that you can plug in a pressure washer or a compressor.

We hang the lights along the length of the car so that there is no shadow by the doors, and outside, over the garage door, we fit a light with a motion sensor. If you are planning an electric car, we lay a separate cable for the charger straight away: we size the cross-section to its power and at the same time check the capacity of the house supply. We photograph concealed wiring before plastering, and the cable run diagram goes into the handover file.

Where it goes on the plot, and the paperwork

Whether a garage needs only a notification or a permit depends on its class of structure, and how the classes relate to the documents is explained in the section on construction in Batumi. The class, the setbacks from the neighbours and the building line, and whether the garage can stand on the plot boundary are checked by our architect with our partner lawyer against the registry extract and the zoning rules.

We choose the location by the access: you need turning space in front of the door, and on a slope we make the area in front of the garage level, otherwise in the rain the car struggles to pull away on a wet incline. If all the car needs is shelter from the sun and downpours, a carport on the plot is quicker and cheaper.

How much it costs to build a garage in Batumi

A turnkey single block garage, 4×6 m, costs from 33,600 to 43,200 ₾. This price includes the foundations, the concrete floor, the walls, the roof, the exterior finish, a sectional door with an automatic opener, lighting and sockets. A double garage, 6×6 m, costs from 49,200 ₾, and a 4×6 m garage on a steel frame with sandwich panels from 25,200 ₾.

The door with its opener and installation is a noticeable part of the estimate: a 2.5×2.2 m opening costs from 4,680 to 6,000 ₾, and a wide opening for a minibus pushes the price up straight away. A cable run from the house in a trench is priced by length, at 69–96 ₾ per linear metre, while an inspection pit, a retaining wall on a slope, interior finishing and shelving are not included in the starting price. Adding a garage to an existing house and a walk-on roof cost more; a frame with panels and a garage built together with the house cost less.

From photos of the plot and a sketch, we'll send a preliminary estimate within 24 hours on business days. The final cost is set on the basis of the design, after a visit to the plot and once the estimate is agreed.