Planning a new garage is one of those decisions that seems simple until you start pricing it up. Brick feels like the traditional, safe choice. Metal sounds quicker and cheaper, but is it actually any good? And does the answer change depending on whether it’s a double garage at home or a vehicle workshop for your business?
We build steel structures for a living, so you can probably guess where we land, but we’ll make the honest case, including the situations where brick genuinely makes sense. Here’s how the two stack up on the things that matter.
Which is cheaper: a metal or brick garage?
Steel, and it usually isn’t close. A brick garage involves deeper foundations, skilled bricklayers on site for weeks, a separately constructed roof, and material costs that have climbed steeply in recent years. A cold rolled steel garage is precision-made off site by trusted British suppliers, then delivered and erected quickly, which slashes the labour bill that makes up so much of a traditional build’s cost.
The gap widens as the building grows. Doubling the size of a brick garage roughly doubles the bricklaying. Doubling a steel garage mostly means more frame and cladding, so larger domestic garages and commercial vehicle stores become dramatically better value in steel.
How much faster is a steel garage to build?
Weeks rather than months. Once groundwork is complete, a steel garage frame and cladding typically go up in days. There’s no waiting for mortar to cure, no scaffolding parked on your drive for a month, and far less weather-related delay — because most of the manufacturing happened indoors before anything arrived on site. For businesses, that speed translates directly into money: less disruption, and a working building sooner.
Which lasts longer and needs less maintenance?
This is where the old assumptions let people down. A modern galvanised steel garage isn’t the flimsy, rattly tin shed of decades past, it’s an engineered structure that won’t rot, warp, crack or suffer damp, and it’s impervious to the pests that trouble timber. Brick is durable too, of course, but it needs repointing over time, and pitched felt or tiled roofs are a recurring maintenance cost that steel simply doesn’t have.
Every building we supply is fully CE-marked and built from high-quality British steel, with manufacturer warranties behind it, so “temporary-looking” certainly doesn’t mean temporary. Many of our structures are protecting vehicles, plant and stock decades after installation.
What about size and design flexibility?
Here steel wins outright. Brick construction needs internal supports as spans increase, but a steel portal frame can span the full width of the building with nothing in the way — perfect for wide double garages, workshops with vehicle lifts, or commercial garages where vans and machinery need to manoeuvre freely. Eaves height, door positions, roller shutters, windows, insulation and mezzanine storage can all be designed around exactly how you’ll use the space.
And if your needs change? Extending a steel garage is a straightforward job. Extending a brick one is a building project.
Is there ever a case for brick?
Occasionally. If you’re in a conservation area, or the garage must precisely match a period property for planning reasons, brick may be the path of least resistance. But even then it’s worth a conversation first: steel buildings can be clad in a wide range of colours and finishes, and many of our domestic clients are surprised at how smart a modern steel garage looks against their home. For commercial use, we’d argue there’s no contest at all.
Steel garages for businesses: the commercial angle
For trade and commercial users — mechanics, fleet operators, plant hire, agricultural businesses — the decision usually makes itself. Steel delivers the clear spans, high eaves, roller shutter access and rapid build times that commercial vehicle storage demands, at a cost per square metre brick can’t approach. We’ve designed and erected vehicle and equipment buildings for clients across the UK [link: /case-studies/], from single workshop units to large multi-vehicle facilities.
The verdict
For almost every home and virtually every business, a steel garage delivers more space, faster, for less money — and keeps delivering with minimal maintenance for decades. If you’re weighing up a new garage, tell us what you need to house and we’ll design a building around it.
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