What we build

Products

Garages and outbuildingsExtensions and garden roomsPorchesGarden structuresPool houses and leisure buildingsBalconiesHomes and barn conversionsWedding and event venuesEverything we build

Signature designs

Worl

Cost it yourself

Scribe

Design library

What we've designed

Drawings and ideas we have designed for clients, built or not.

What we've built
What it costs
Guides and advice
About
About usHow it worksVisit the workshopFor architects
Get in touch
01873 379050
GUIDES AND ADVICE

Guides and advice

Straight answers to the questions people ask us before they buy, sorted by the building you are planning.

Product
AllGaragesExtensions and garden roomsPorches
Question
AllCostPlanningWhich to chooseBuying from usLiving with oak
The oak frame garage at Caerleon: a roller-door bay with the gym bay beside it, under a slate roof.
GARAGES

Garages

Garages, car ports, cart sheds and workshops.

How much does an oak frame garage cost?

About £55,000 to £67,000 including VAT for a two-bay oak frame garage we design and build, and about £69,000 to £84,000 for three bays, at rates of 9 October 2026. Roughly £1,090 to £1,750 per square metre of external footprint, before design and approvals. A frame your own builder finishes costs less; a room over is priced per job.

Cost
8

Why do oak frame garage quotations differ so much?

Usually because they aren't pricing the same building. How much of the job is included, how the frame is specified and made, and whether VAT is in the figure can move a quote by thousands, and none of it shows in the total. A lower price can also be honest: a simpler design costs less.

Cost
6

Does a garage add value to a house?

Nobody can give you a percentage, and we won't. A garage can help a house sell if it is consented, well built and the right size for the house, and it can hurt one if it isn't. Whether an oak one is worth the cost is a question about how you'll use it, not about resale.

Cost
7
The glazed oak gable at Ty Fry, Crickhowell, facing down the valley.
EXTENSIONS AND GARDEN ROOMS

Extensions and garden rooms

Single-storey and two-storey extensions, and standalone garden rooms.

How much does an oak frame extension cost?

A finished, heated oak frame extension from us costs £2,550–£5,800 per square metre of external footprint including VAT, by size band, before design and approvals, correct at October 2026. Under 20m² it is £3,850–£5,800, from 20 to 29m² £3,400–£4,500, and from 30 to 60m² £2,550–£3,650; larger rooms and garden rooms are quoted per job. A 25m² room comes to roughly £85,000–£112,500 including VAT (£70,800–£93,800 plus VAT) before design and approvals. The frame on its own is a fraction of that, and the gap between the two numbers is what this article explains.

Cost
7

Do you need planning permission for an oak frame extension or garden room?

Often, yes. An attached oak frame extension has tighter permitted development limits than a garage or a porch, and the limits differ between Wales and England. A detached garden room is judged under the outbuilding rules instead, and is more often permitted development. Designated land, a listed house and previous extensions all change the answer.

Planning
8
The glazed oak gable porch at Llanbedr, near Crickhowell.
PORCHES

Porches

Gabled and lean-to oak porches, open or glazed.

Is an oak porch worth it over a softwood or GRP canopy?

Only if the porch will be looked at, you want the timber seen and nobody wants to paint it. A GRP canopy on brackets costs a few hundred pounds and goes up in an afternoon; a painted softwood porch can be built to the same shapes as oak for less. On the right house, oak repays the difference.

Which to choose
6

What do people forget when planning a porch?

The small things. Air bricks that can't be covered, where the roof's rain lands, level access to the door, a light and a socket, and somewhere to put the boots down. A bench or a log store is far easier designed in than added. All of it is cheaper to decide before the porch is drawn than to fix after.

Which to choose
6

What roof should an oak porch have?

Cover it in whatever is on the house, slate or tile, and pitch it to follow the house. The decision people forget is underneath: oak sarking board, a black-faced membrane, or oak battens with no membrane at all. It's what you look up at every time you walk in, so decide it before anyone quotes.

Which to choose
6

What shape of oak porch suits my house?

The house usually decides, not taste. A gable is the first choice unless something stops it: a window low over the door, or a porch so wide the ridge climbs too high. Then it's a lean-to, or a hipped roof that sits lower. Nowhere to stand a post means a cantilever. A door tight into a corner wants an L.

Which to choose
7

Should an oak porch stand on a plinth wall or go to the ground?

Posts straight down to staddle stones is the simplest, cheapest base for an oak porch, and often the right one. A stone or brick plinth wall is an addition, not a swap, on an open porch and a glazed one alike. Choose a plinth for what it does, not to save money.

Which to choose
6

How do you stop a glazed oak porch leaking?

A glazed oak porch leaks where rigid glass is sealed to green oak that's still moving. Keep the seal off the oak: sealed units on the outside face of the frame, taped pane to pane into one continuous skin that's fixed to the glass, not the timber. That's face glazing, and it's the only way we glaze.

Living with oak
7

Can I buy an oak porch frame and put it up myself?

Yes, for an open porch. We sell the frame supply only anywhere in the UK: cut, numbered and ready to raise, with assembly drawings, and checked by our consulting engineer. Your builder does the base, raises it and roofs it. It is £2,500 to £5,000 including VAT, depending on size, rates at 9 October 2026. Glazed porches aren't sold this way.

Buying from us
6

What goes wrong with oak porches, and how do you stop it?

The commonest way an oak porch fails is at the feet, where a post stands in the wet. The rest comes from how it meets the house, the joints, the oak, the fixings and the finish, and from not knowing what green oak does in its first year. Almost all of it is settled before the porch goes up.

Living with oak
7

Why do two oak porches the same size cost different money?

Because an oak frame is priced by its joints, not its size. Two porches with the same footprint can differ in how many members they have and how much shaping each one carries, and that's where the workshop time goes. The base, and how much of the job the price covers, move it too.

Cost
6

Open or glazed oak porch: which will you actually use?

If you want the rain kept off while you find your keys and a front door that looks like an entrance, an open porch does it and a glazed one is a room you'll walk through. If you want boots off with a door shut behind you, only a glazed porch does that. Decide by what happens at the door.

Which to choose
7

How much does an oak porch cost?

An open oak porch costs £2,500 to £5,000 as a frame supplied only and £6,500 to £12,000 designed and built, including VAT, depending on size. Glazed porches are quoted per job. Prices are for work on an existing house, rates at 9 October 2026.

Cost
7
Corner post and brace of the oak frame gazebo at Duffryn Mawr.
BUYING FROM US

Buying from us

Whatever you build: how to buy it, how long it takes, and who to buy it from.

Supply only, supply and install, or design and build: which is right for you?

Design and build if you want one firm and one number. Supply and install if you already have a builder for the base, the roof and the finishes. Supply only if you have a carpenter to raise the frame and you're anywhere in the country. The route changes who carries the risk, not just who does the work.

Buying from us
8
Green oak pergola with hand-cut joints at Ullenhall.
LIVING WITH OAK

Living with oak

Whatever you build: what green oak does as it dries and ages, what it needs from you, and whether it is sustainable.

Why is oak framing coming back?

Oak framing very nearly died out in Britain. For most of the twentieth century almost nobody was cutting new frames — the knowledge survived in a handful of repair workshops and not much else. Here is what happened, what brought the craft back, and what has genuinely changed in the workshop since.

Living with oak
7

Is oak framing sustainable?

Timber is the only structural material that grows back. But “renewable” and “sustainable” are not the same word, and oak framing has real trade-offs alongside the genuine advantages. Here is an honest account of where our oak comes from, what it does for carbon, and where the claims get overstated.

Living with oak
8

PRICES

What does it cost?

Every price we publish, in one place, including VAT, with what each one covers.

See the prices

GET IN TOUCH

Tell us what you're planning

Send us a sketch, a photograph or a rough idea. We'll reply by the end of the next working day, and every enquiry starts with a phone or video call.

Get in touch
What we build
What we've built
How it works
About us
Foxtail Oak
Oak frames, made in Monmouthshire.
Foxtail Oak Ltd
Pantygelli, near Abergavenny
Monmouthshire

01873 379050
info@foxtailoak.co.uk
Foxtail Oak Ltd
Pantygelli, near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire
Abergavenny · Monmouthshire
01873 379050info@foxtailoak.co.uk
FOXTAIL OAK
© Foxtail Oak Ltd 2026 · Company no. 12733862 · Registered in England & Wales.
© Foxtail Oak Ltd 2026 · Company no. 12733862
PrivacyCookiesT&Cs