|
|
|
Jul 14, 2019 21:10:34 GMT
|
|
Edit: Now we've got started with this I thought I would just update this thread rather than start another - I'm just going to tag on to this one.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi all,
This is a ludicrously premature thread, we're putting in an offer tomorrow on a house that has a prime spot in the back garden for a garage of up to about 16ft x 20ft.
We are hoping... hoping! to have up to about £6-8k ready after it's all done to build a garage. The area is asphalt at the moment so I guess we would need to lay down concrete first.
Looking into garage builds, the main options seem to be prefab concrete, or timber.
When I lived with my folks we originally had a prefab concrete one, then at the next house we had log cabin built with a ramp up that we used for just motorbikes. Speaking to dad about it he was a big fan of the timber one - held up well to condensation etc. I also like the look of them.
Prices between prefabs and timber garages seem roughly in line.
Any opinions? I don't think our budget will extend to actually having builders come and build a breezeblock garage - or will it? We're in Essex if that makes any odds.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 15, 2019 10:51:49 GMT
|
|
I recently bought my first house and had all sorts of plans and ideas and budgets and everything changed when we eventually got in. Best thing to do is - if you get it just take one day at a time and no doubt your order of jobs will be flipped on its head and by that time you'll have a different plan for the garage anyhow...
The eventual building will be dictated by how far you want to go - and that relates to what you want it for i.e. Just storage or a workshop, heated etc the roofs likely to be the toughest part depending on the size and any relevant building regs.
A friend of mine just built a timber shed slightly under regs and it's huge and solid. Not gonna be warm in winter though.
Good luck
|
| |
|
|
kenb
Part of things
Posts: 604
|
|
Jul 15, 2019 11:01:04 GMT
|
|
Yup log timber for me too.. Much kinder to the car inside and warmer in winter. Downside is more external maintenance if you want it to last. I treat it every 4/5 years but the stuff is the best part of £35 a tin and it takes two of them. Another downside is possibly contents insurance if your tools and equipment are very valuable. They weren't too keen on insuring for high value stuff. I got there in the end but only because my garage is pretty difficult to get at from any public access and well alarmed.
Another one I get asked by people, is about welding and grinding. Just be careful where you aim any sparks basically.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 15, 2019 12:13:02 GMT
|
|
You can get timber sheds to be quite sophisticated. Ours are a regular 4x2 stud wall on top of a couple of layers of bricks. Then a waterproof breathable membrane is stapled to the studs, and battens on top to space of the feather edge. For the roof we use regular tin sheet, but put sheets of Celotex underneath it to combat condensation. Outside gets sprayed with some sort of oil-based weather protection (we've just got a big tub of it left over from a farmer doing his sheds, not sure what it is. Sort of like a watered down creosote).
On the sheds where we've got the roof pitch right (one is too shallow) they're bone dry inside even when it's chucking it down. Nil condensation either, even on cold mornings.
On some of the sheds we've filled the studs with insulation (could use Celotex again, but we lined it with plastic wool) and then faced the inside with chipboard. Stays lovely and cool in summer and easy to heat up in winter.
Welded and angle-ground to my hearts content in the lined shed with no hint of fire. I've found sparks and welding blobs are very hot but don't have the mass to set wood on fire (or even carpet). They'll char a little bit, but provided your insulation isn't poking out you'll be fine with timber. Honestly, in all my years of welding the only thing I've actually set fire to has been kitchen roll and the underseal on the opposite side of a panel I've been welding.
Oh, and costing up the materials for making our just-sub 30sqm garage this way came to a little over £1500 with some fortuitous eBay second-hand timber.
|
| |
Last Edit: Jul 15, 2019 12:14:32 GMT by biturbo228
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 15, 2019 18:40:39 GMT
|
|
Good advice all round, thank you guys. Nice to hear that timber can make a useful workshop/garage too as I think they’re much nicer to look at than concrete.
You’re definitely right about the priorities! It won’t surprise me if moving house to get a bigger garage leaves the car under a cover for a year!
|
| |
|
|
richrolls
Part of things
Posts: 318
Club RR Member Number: 38
|
|
Jul 16, 2019 21:14:26 GMT
|
Both. Or all the options. Bit biased mind.  |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Take a look on garage journal forum for some inspiration on Timber frame garages- they needn’t be cold in the winter or unbearably hot in the summer and careful shopping with seconds & co and keeping an eye on eBay and gumtree for excess insulation sheets can yield dividends and ensure the shed is useable all year round.
I have clad my timber framed garage with a class 0 fire rated cementatious panels which my wife then painted - got one properly trained there😉 and the internal walls have 1/2 in ply covered with 1/2 in fire rated plasterboard. Walls and roof are all insulated with celotex or similar mainly sourced from seconds & co and the vehicle door is also insulated.
However, the most significant decision I made was to go for an insulated floor so that it does not act as a great big heat soak and absorb all of your winter heating straight back in the ground. In the summer, it is always much cooler in the garage compared to outside and in the winter, I used to have a fan heater but have upgraded to a diesel van heater for this coming cold season which should keep things lovely and toasty.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 18, 2019 11:47:37 GMT
|
|
Alot of what you can build depends on local building regs. Alot of those are now aligning to national guidelines and as such permitted development allows certain things with no planning permission needed. You just have to be very careful of what material you use in proximity to borders, size and height.
I built a brick garage with sloping flat roof as i wanted it right up against the border with next door and over a certain size you cant use combustible material. I made it double skin for insulation and included RSJ's in the roof for lifting engines and even a pit.
It is very over engineered, but with it being bottom of my garden, my justification is if we ever moved, the roller door could be ripped out and french doors could be fitted and therefore could become an outdoor office or out-building. This would then add value to the house to a non-car person.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 19, 2019 12:28:15 GMT
|
|
I and few others on here have pre-fab garages lined with something ( OSB in my case ) put a DPM behind the OSB and you have perfectly dry structure. The advantage is you can pick up pre-fab garages for virtually nothing if you are prepared to take them away (if you have to its not too expensive to hire a van for a couple of hours) and they come in 2 foot sections which bolt together so you can make almost any shape you like. My OSB was secondhand ex shuttering at £1 a sheet as well, the roof on mine is made from timber, covered in OSB and then felt shingles.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 19, 2019 23:02:23 GMT
|
|
We've been thinking further into it. Basically there is a 5m wide area behind the house that's already asphalt, with a pretty grotty but pretty sturdy metal workshop that looks basically like half a shipping container. We now think we're going to get rid of it because it's ugly as sin and the roof's pretty rubbish too.
This means that the garage we can put up can be as big as 4m x 10m, or even 5m x 10m. The purpose of it would to be a proper garage - car storage and work space. I'm going to check with planning etc locally but I gather that as it's going to be close to the fence, it doesn't want to be taller than 2.5m, but I see that this is pretty standard and they're out there.
I haven't seen log cabin style garages of that size but I have seen them up to 9m, however all those designs are square but I'm sure one firm or another will make a custom one.
If it's going to be that size, does that change things? I would be happy with an insulated concrete garage but I feel like that will push the cost up considerably, and at that size I'd want to ge the concrete poured rather than try to do it all myself in one shot.
Anyone got a really big log cabin?
Looks like the house purchase is going to go ahead, fingers crossed.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
bazzateer
Posted a lot
Imping along sans Vogue
Posts: 3,653
|
|
Aug 16, 2019 13:19:43 GMT
|
Timber has worked well for me. 6" dwarf wall supporting 6'6" walls which I insulated, vapour barriered and panelled with 6mm OSB (inc the ceiling and doors). Takes 20 mins to warm up in the winter then stays warm all day. In the summer it's much cooler than outside. It's 30' x 20' and was built to my spec by a firm in Staffs (Timberlux www.ebay.co.uk/itm/30X20-TIMBER-GARAGE-22mm-T-G-GARAGE-WORKSHOP/163635092901?hash=item2619695da5:g:wV0AAOSwVc5bVume . They delivered it to Watford and erected it on my base as part of the deal. Took them less than 2 hours to put it up. This is the only pic I have to hand showing one 20' gable end. The other has two car access doors onto a rear alley. The window and doors you see here were eBay purchases totalling £60 bought before the garage was even ordered. It was built to accommodate them.  |
| |
Last Edit: Aug 16, 2019 13:22:12 GMT by bazzateer
1968 Singer Chamois Sport
1972 Sunbeam Imp Sport
1976 Datsun 260Z 2+2
1998 Peugeot Boxer Pilote motorhome
2003 Rover 75 1.8 Club SE (daily)
2006 MG ZT 190+ (another daily)
2007 BMW 530d Touring M Sport (tow car)
|
|
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2019 21:34:23 GMT
|
|
It's ordered! We're right at the end of the buying process on the house now, and I've ordered the garage today to secure the sale price ending end of this month (no idea if they're DFS style sales and a new one will start on the 1st though!) but it's a refundable deposit if the house purchase manages to fall through. However we're right on the finish line now.
Went for a 4 x 7.5m log cabin type with an up and over door. Think it will fit the size and shape of the garden best. Was really tempted to try for a 'double' but with two cars there would have been no room for anything else, so a luxury single it is.
Will be a manic first few weeks in the house trying to get the slab done and garage up before winter comes and the super minx rots away!
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Sept 2, 2019 22:21:49 GMT
|
So in that way that I do, I've been getting over-excited... Bought these a few weeks ago because my dad has these and I've always thought they worked great in a garage - Bisley tambour door cabinets:  Built nice and tough, the tambour doors work really well for space saving as well. Got them painted up, just hammerite but should do me ok:   Then I got really carried away with my mate's trade card:  They're all just going to be plonked in at first but longer term plan is to build the whole lot in to a sort of L-shaped work bench. Will need to make up some sort of frame out of timber or steel to raise the workbench height on the toolboxes, and probably put some nice long drawers above the tambours. Final layout to be confirmed but probably a nice big L. I'd really like to do this for the tool chests:  But it's a fair old bit of steel to buy, and I have no welding experience. I would like to learn and a couple of people have said this is a managable project to learn on, and that they'd help me with it. So maybe that can be the long term plan. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 17, 2019 18:15:17 GMT
|
Right! So it's moving forward now. We decided on this garage: www.quick-garden.co.uk/wooden-garages-aluminum-carports/wooden-garage-4m-x-7-5m-13-x-25-44mm.html#It's 4 x 7.5m so bang on 30sqm. Once we'd eyeballed the sizes and so on, we didn't want to eat too much into the garden, this also means no planning permission as it can go under permitted development. Old workshop:    Didn't get any pictures of the demolition but here it is gone:  Squad goals  Marking out the hole for the slab:   Starting to dig out - the first transformer I got with the hire breaker wasn't working which meant another 2hr round trip.. living out in the sticks, yay  End of day one:  Shuttering going in:  End of day two:  Still got to dig out a lot of soil tomorrow to get it down low enough. There's quite a bit of random hardcore in there mostly towards the back, so we will dig out the front, move the hardcore to the front, then dig out the back. Should be ok. Aiming for 2-3in of hardcore, then a heavy duty membrane and a 6in C35 slab with reinforcing mesh. That should be getting poured on Saturday. There was power to the workshop which we have chased out, and that will be routed to the front left of the garage and come up through the floor. Going pretty well but I am knackered and so's my dad! One more day of proper work though. Really happy with the size - it's just going to be a big single with room for workshop type stuff at the back and down part of one side. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 17, 2019 18:19:37 GMT
|
|
Crikey. Bit of a day today. We were digging out today, and compacting it down with the whacker.
Digging it out was not going too well for a while - a really awkward mix of clay and stones, with some bits being mostly stones, so we left them, and got as much clay out as we could. We spread what 'hardcore' type stuff we had, which was a fair bit, around as much as we could and then decided to get some Type 1 in, got 3 bags and got that in and levelled it out. It came a bit higher up than we had planned for, but it's nice and level, well compacted and we feel like we've now got a good enough base for the slab to go on - the bits we didn't dig out fully were because it was already very rocky from previous work so should drain well and not expand and contract too much. We put 3 cubic metres down over 30sqm, so I guess that should be about 100mm of extra hardcore on top of what was already there before it was compacted.
It's now about 5 inches for concrete. I have enough 2 x 1 that I can actually raise the shuttering up an inch or so all around to maintain the planned 6 inch slab, or I can leave it at 125mm. 150mm is often recommended for garages but I also see 100-150mm but this to be fair is wooden as opposed to concrete so much lighter. My dad and the guy next door (who does concrete foundations and so on for work and is helping me with the pour on Saturday) reckon it'll be fine because it's C35 which is a strong mix, and it's got reinforcing mesh as well.
Didn't get any pictures as we finished up in the dark. Knackered.
Got some questions on another forum which I'll answer here pre-emptively:
It's not right up to the fence so that we can paint & maintain it, and also we plan on putting up a small gate between the garage and the fence after a while, I have some ladders to store, and we can keep the bins down there. It's also supposed to be 1m from boundaries under the permitted development rules. Some bits are slightly less but the neighbour doesn't care. I still want to keep some space though.
The power should be fine for power tools etc -we've been running a transformer from it for the breaker, and using it for power tools during the build. It's 16mm armoured cable. I haven't run ethernet out there as the power cable is still under the driveway for about 4m and getting the building up is the priority at the moment. I may run it one day though, but I think more likely I will just move the router towards the back of the house as it's not that far really!
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 20, 2019 17:49:13 GMT
|
Slab is down :  Drying and dusty at the moment but a pretty good smooth finish. I had my next door neighbour do it for a day wage as Dad and I weren't able to get together to do it at the right time. He did a much better job than we would have too! Laser levelled, rounded edges to the slab and a nice lightly tamped finish. Hoping for the building to be delivered in about a week and we'll put it up the week after. Going to need to get a grabber in to get rid of all the waste, there's a huge amount and it's giving me a headache! |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 29, 2019 21:04:35 GMT
|
It's here!  Also featuring huge pile of stuff in front garden and widened out front gate for skips... Wasn't able to get a grabber to get it as it's too mixed. On the upside the back garden is significantly tidier now! I've also back-filled around the slab with crushed asphalt which we'll top off with some nicer gravel once it's done. But it's back filled and should drain ok. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Started this morning. Took an absolute age to unpack! Made me wish I'd started unpacking it prior to my dad coming to put it up with me, but then it's more time out in the rain and so on. Also took a fair while getting the bearers all straight and fixed down, but glad we did. They don't insist you do it but I think it's best.   Getting pretty wonky by this point! Was pretty sure the gables etc would pull in back to straight, and they did.  Where we finished - all the walls up, gables and rafters. I think that's it for main structure. One million roof planks to put on tomorrow, and all the trim etc.  Don't know if we'll be lucky with the weather to put the shingles on, as they're self-adhesive. But I don't think it's looking good. Really happy with the garage though. It's almost in square now the roof's on but we're going to brace it up and get it dead on before we do the roof planks, then it'll be sweet. It's got just a slight parallelogram sort of thing going on currently. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
That didn’t take long. Excellent progress.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
