Golf Simulator Room Conversion UK: Turn Any Space Into a Sim

A common case: a single garage with a ceiling of 2.2m at the lowest joist, and a 6-foot-two golfer whose driver is going to clip it. The usual levers are dropping the mat height, moving the hitting position forward, and switching from a radar unit to a camera one so you aren't clawing back 2.4m of depth you don't have. That's the whole game with a UK room conversion: the space you've got dictates the kit, not the other way round.

I help people plan these setups for real British houses — cold garages, awkward spare rooms, garden rooms built from a bare slab. Let's go room by room, then deal with the boring stuff (heat, damp, power) that quietly wrecks kit if you ignore it.

The launch monitor decides your depth before anything else

Here's the single thing that trips people up when they measure a room. There are two families of launch monitor, and they sit in completely different places relative to the ball.

Radar units — the Garmin Approach R10 (£421) and the FlightScope Mevo Gen2 (£1,199) — sit behind you and read the ball as it flies away. They want roughly 2.4m of clear space behind the ball to see enough flight to model the shot. In a short room, that 2.4m is space you simply might not have once you've added the golfer and the swing.

Camera units — the Foresight GC3 (£7,500), the Uneekor Eye Mini (£2,999) and the Garmin Approach R50 (£4,299) — sit down by the ball, about 0.6m to the side, and photograph impact. They read everything they need in the first few inches off the face, so they claw back all that depth behind you. In a garage or spare room where you're fighting for every metre, a camera unit is often the difference between fitting a sim and not.

So before you fall in love with a bundle, measure your room and be honest about which family fits. Long garage with room to breathe? A radar unit like the Mevo Gen2 is brilliant value. Short room, tight depth? Spend up for a camera and stop fighting physics.

Garage conversion: the most common UK sim room

Nine out of ten rooms I look at are single garages, and they're a great shell for a sim. A typical UK single garage runs around 5m long by 2.5–3m wide, with a ceiling somewhere between 2.3m and 2.5m. Length is rarely the problem; height is. Measure to the lowest point — a joist, a garage-door track, a light fitting — not the middle of the ceiling, because that's what your driver meets on the way through.

Most single-garage conversions in the UK don't need planning permission because you're not changing the building's footprint, but building regulations usually come into play once you touch structure, electrics or insulation. Always ring your local building control before you start — it's a five-minute call that saves a lot of grief.

You've three options for the garage door: leave it, fit an insulated roller door to kill draughts, or brick the opening up entirely. Bricking up gives the warmest, quietest room and a solid wall to mount a screen frame against, but it's the priciest and a permanent change. Budget roughly £1,500–£3,000 for a basic tidy-up, or £3,000–£6,000 for a premium conversion with a bricked opening, full insulation and plastering — before any golf kit.

For a garage the length is usually there, so a radar-based package like the FlightScope Mevo Gen2 full package works well — enclosure, mat and monitor in one, sized for a room like this.

Spare bedroom: doable, but width is the enemy

A spare bedroom can absolutely become a sim, and it's the warmest, driest option in the house because it's already inside the heated envelope. The catch is width. A standard double bedroom is often around 3.6m by 3m, and 3m of width is about the practical minimum — you need room to swing a driver without a follow-through into the wall. If you're right-handed, position yourself so the trail side has the space, and check the swing arc with an actual club before you commit the screen position.

Depth is usually the tighter dimension in a bedroom, which is exactly why I'll often steer spare-room conversions towards a camera unit. Losing 2.4m of radar depth in a room that's only 3m deep is brutal; a camera by the ball frees that up. Protect the floor and the room stays a room — interlocking rubber gym tiles run roughly £40–£80 to cover a spare bedroom and stop a shanked ball marking the skirting.

Loft conversion: headroom and the floor underneath you

Lofts look tempting because they're often the biggest open space in the house, but two things bite. First, the sloped ceiling: your usable full-height zone is only the middle strip under the ridge, so measure where you'll actually stand and swing, not the floor area. Second, and more important, lofts are built to carry storage loads, not a golfer thumping a mat plus a screen frame and a PC. Get a structural engineer or building control to sign off the floor before you spend a penny on kit — this is not the corner to cut.

If the loft's already a converted, signed-off room, you're mostly looking at flooring and a power run — call it £500–£1,000. If it's a raw loft, you're into a full loft conversion, a £20,000–£40,000 building job in its own right.

Garden room: building the perfect shell from scratch

Building fresh lets you design the room around the golf instead of compromising, and it's my favourite route. Aim for around 5m by 4m with a 3m internal height and you've a genuinely comfortable bay with room for a sofa and a fridge. Go 6m by 5m if the garden allows and you'll never feel boxed in.

Most garden rooms fall under permitted development if they're single storey with eaves no higher than 2.5m, no more than 4m overall with a dual-pitched roof (3m for any other roof), and no more than 2.5m overall within 2m of a boundary (England) — but the rules have enough exceptions that you should check with local planning first. Power is the line item people forget: an armoured supply from the house consumer unit runs roughly £800–£2,000 depending on trench distance.

A purpose-built room lets you fit a proper enclosure like the SimSpace UltraMAX (£1,499.99), or if you're keeping it tighter, the SimSpace Sim 5 at 3m x 3m x 3m (£1,299.01). With the space and the power sorted, a camera-based package like the Foresight GC3 full package (from £9,990) or the R50 room package with projector turns a garden room into something that plays like a proper studio.

Heat, damp and the stuff that kills kit

This is where I see the most avoidable heartbreak. Simulators hate two things: cold and damp. A projector and gaming PC don't love baking heat either, but in a British garage or garden room the real enemy is a cold, condensing room in January — that's what corrodes connectors and fogs a lens.

Insulate before anything else: at least 100mm of rigid insulation in the walls, floor and roof of a garden room, and either board and insulate the up-and-over garage door or brick it up. For heat, an electric panel heater or oil-filled radiator on a thermostat is ideal — avoid fan heaters, because they fling dust straight at your screen and lens. Keep the room dry and comfortably above freezing rather than chasing an exact temperature.

Power, PC and flooring

Wire for more sockets than you think you need. A sim pulls together a PC or laptop, projector, launch-monitor charger, audio bar, lighting and a heater — I like at least four double sockets spread around the room, ideally on their own radial circuit so a tripped breaker doesn't take the whole room down mid-round. Put the lights on a dimmer and keep them off the wall directly in front of the screen, or you'll wash the image out.

Sim software is heavier than people expect, so a proper machine matters. Our sim-spec gaming laptop (£1,750) runs the course software cleanly and keeps the room tidier than a tower. For flooring, interlocking rubber gym tiles are the honest answer at roughly £30–£70 for a 3m x 4m area — they protect the slab, kill some noise and give the mat a stable base. If a garage floor is uneven, self-levelling compound is a cheap fix at £15–£30 a bag first. Whatever mat you land on, get a good one — it's the bit you stand on every session — and you can compare the ones I'd actually recommend in our hitting mats collection.

What a conversion actually costs

These are the building-work ranges I quote in the UK in 2026 — before any golf equipment goes in. Add roughly £4,000–£7,300 on top for a complete monitor-plus-enclosure-plus-mat package depending on which launch-monitor family you land on.

So what would I actually do?

Single garage with decent length? Insulate the door, run four sockets and put a Mevo Gen2 package in — best value in the house. Squeezing a sim into a spare bedroom or headroom-limited loft? Spend up for a camera unit and stop fighting for depth you don't have. Building a garden room from scratch? Do it once and do it right: 100mm of insulation, a proper power supply, a full SimSpace enclosure and a camera-based package that plays like a studio. The room comes first, the monitor second — get that order right and the golf takes care of itself.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need planning permission to convert my garage into a golf simulator?

Usually not, because you're not changing the building's footprint. Building regulations, though, often apply once you touch structure, electrics or insulation, and garden rooms have their own permitted-development limits. Ring your local building control and planning department before you start — it's a quick call that saves expensive mistakes.

What is the minimum room size for a golf simulator?

Around 3m wide, 3m deep and 2.4m high is the practical floor. Width lets you swing a driver, height clears the arc, and depth matters most of all — which is why a short room usually wants a camera launch monitor by the ball rather than a radar unit needing 2.4m behind you.

Radar or camera launch monitor for a small room?

Camera, most of the time. Radar units like the R10 and Mevo Gen2 sit behind you and need roughly 2.4m of clear space behind the ball. Camera units like the GC3, Eye Mini and R50 sit beside the ball about 0.6m out, so they read impact without eating your room depth — ideal when metres are tight.

Can I use a garden room golf simulator all year round in the UK?

Yes, but only if you insulate and heat it. Without insulation a garden room is too cold from October to April and can suffer condensation that damages electronics. With at least 100mm of rigid insulation and a thermostatic panel or oil-filled heater, it's comfortable in the depths of a British winter.

Does a home golf simulator add value to my property?

A well-built, insulated garden room or proper garage conversion adds usable square footage that buyers value, and a garden room can transfer with the house. Building it to a good standard — insulated and properly wired — is what protects the value.