Beware of a Room Above a Garage!

Does the floor plan you are considering have rooms or a room above a Garage? 

PROBLEMS

Beware of these spaces!  They can be great for adding square footage and extra space to the house, but in general it is a bad floor plan design if there is a bedroom over the garage.

Why?  Because garages are not insulated, and not heated or cooled.  The heat rises easily into the rooms above even if the ceiling of the garage is insulated.  It costs a fortune to heat or cool these spaces.

They can be great Game Rooms or extra play or work space, just make certain that they can be isolated from the rest of the house. And, it may be preferable that they have their own separate heating and air conditioning unit.

Cooling

One house I lived in had the Master Bedroom over the Garage.  This room was the hottest room in the house and even with a ceiling fan we could not keep it cool enough to sleep comfortably in August.  We ended up adding a temporary window air conditioning unit to that we could sleep.  Unfortunately, the only windows in this room faced the street and in a short period of time the Homeowners Association asked us to remove the window unit.

The final solution was to totally redo the interior ventilation ducting and the way the heat pump units fed the cool air into the house - this is EXPENSIVE!

Heating

A cold climate with a cold room above a garage is solved more easily and economically with space heaters, wood burning stoves or other heating sources.

Abbreviations

A room above a garage in some area's of the United States is abbreviated in Real Estate Listings as a ROG, or if the room is finished it is a FROG.

An unfinished room is still very useful for storage depending on how easy it is to access the space.  How wide is the stair case?  Is it completely finished and isolated with a door?  How well does the door seal?  Is it an indoor room door or an outdoor garage style door?

Other cases have semi detached or totally detached garages with an apartment over the garage that can be used as a separate rental unit. 

If the room does not have a closet it cannot be considered as a "conforming" bedroom or count toward the number of bedrooms in a real estate listing. 

A new and increasingly popular use for these spaces are as Home Theatres.  Some have the same long, narrow shape as the garage below them and lend themselves to a layout with the theatre screen on the short end of the room and two or three sets of theatre seats on each side. The audio visual components are at the back of the room and a projector mounted in the ceiling. 

We have seen several of these in builders model homes with ceilings painted black and other plush movie theatre like decorations.  See our page on Home Theatres.

Consider these spaces as a bonus to what you are getting with the house, but only an additional value if they are finished, well insulated and have separate heating & cooling.