BiTurbo228's garage build

Get some lengths of soil pipe, jack the structure up and use the pipe as rollers.

The best things about soil pipe are it’s not dear, it’s pretty damn tough, and it’s the kind of thing that you can always find some use for afterwards.

So, I was talked out of moving the shed whole not because we thought it would be too difficult, but it's the wrong sort of shape for the space it'd be going in, and would need so much modification that you might as well start from scratch. So, back to dismantling!

Turns out there's quite a lot of work in dismantling a properly built timber shed! Treated myself to a 3ft crowbar which sped things up a little though





We figured it was so wobbly after having taken the boarding off that we'd just pull it down with rope to tackle the roof, though it certainly put up a fight before we managed it (we being me and a mate who's lent a hand with all the dismantling). Was still pretty solid even at this alarming angle:



I'd say we got it to 30 degrees off horizontal before the weight of the roof actually took the walls down. Having it at floor level made it much easier to pull all the roof boarding off though as there were two layers of it. Now there's just the world's supply of denailing and tidying up to do

Yeah absolutely! Some of the ends got a bit chewed up, but there's a good 50 or so 2.4m 4x2s, and the same again of usable batten. At least a dozen 6x2s from the roof. All the sheeting that came off (which again is a little worse for wear, but can be used in out of the way places where that doesn't matter). Even managed to get one or two lengths of feather edge off without breaking it, which must be some kind of record

There's more to come out of the floor as well!

I'm currently weighing up whether to save this lot for things like shelving, or make a saving on the structural timber. It'd be nice to save some money, but thanks to the bulk order I'll likely never be buying 4x2 as as cut-price a rate again, so if I can stretch to it I could make a longer-term saving.

I suppose that choice will depend on how bruised the wallet is feeling!

Started breaking up the old concrete slab:



I've come across tougher crisp packets. While some areas are 4" thick, most of it varies from that down to about 2" (and not a reinforcement in sight):



Not that I'm complaining of course! I'd borrowed my dad's kango hammer in anticipation of breaking this up, but in the end I just massaged it a little all over with the sledgehammer and pried it up with a crowbar and it fell to pieces. Took no time to get to this point:



...and not a great deal longer to get it all clear as well.



The hardcore underneath is similarly dodgy, being mainly ex-breezeblocks and full of voids and soil.



I gave it a bit of compacting with the sledgehammer and checked the level afterwards. Don't have a laser-level yet, so got a bit creative with two poles, a length of batten and a level app on my phone:




Turns out it's 2" lower than it needs to be over most of the area, which gives a bit of space for some better quality hardcore. So long as it's at least as tough as plain dirt I should be ok.

The extra space for hardcore is useful though as I had a load in the pickup and the soon-to-be-hardstanding area was looking pretty full!



I can sense a time when I can do something other than groundwork. It's not here just yet, but it's exciting that it's coming!

Thanks man! Lots of work, but progress hasn't been too bad. And yeah, if I didn't get all of this recycled stuff I wouldn't be able to afford it! Crazy how much material goes into groundwork.

Now I'm actually back at home to measure things, I actually have an extra 1m I can push the back of the LH garage back by. If I narrow the internal width from 3.8m to 3.4m (which is still fine for the little cars I work on), things get a lot more flexible.



I think this might be the favourite. I'll still have more workbench space than I've ever had, especially if I keep the floating workbench idea, and it means I can get two of my little sportscar projects in out of the weather and still have space to work around them (even more if I get some wheel dollies to angle them).

Tell me about it! Definitely looking forward to not rolling around in puddles. Arranging car work around a kiddo and guests in our airbnb outbuilding is tricky enough without having to mix in the weather as well.

I am pretty well practiced at completely ramming them with junk to the point I can't really do much work in them though hoping to maintain a little more discipline this time (and build in a few things that'll make it easier to maintain, which we'll get to later).