Actual garage build thread

[Nedski]

I didn’t know wether to post this and make a thread or not. Well here goes anyway. 

I’m not a builder but I can get stuck in. There are probably better ways of doing some things . You may want to say “Don’t do it like that. Do it like this”. Hey ho I just hope my cash will last until its finished. If it doesn’t this might be a long lasting thread.

It’s going to be mostly photo’s with some descriptions of what’s going on. So back in time a little some photo’s of my original garage.  You can see why it has to go.

 

 

You would think that it’s had its day just pull it down.

Oh no you can’t, nothing is that simple. This is England not Spain, France, Italy etc . We need to go by the book, bring on the council…

PLANNING      oh just great…           Planning permision to knock my old one down, as well as building a new one.

Drafted up some rough ideas, measured out the plot and contacted an a Architect to get the ball rolling.

The council also need some boxes ticking…  So before any bricks get moved I have to PAY for a BAT inspector to prove what I already know, I don’t have Bat’s. £350 quid.  The council also sent around someone  for listed buildings, an archeologist and the planning officer himself . I kid not. 

My house is rendered and painted, so we were going to match the finish with the garage. This would make the build cheaper as we could use blocks and then render them. But nope the council have asked for a brick finish. More expense.    So the architect sent in the plans for a brick finish.

Rejected as I had submitted thinner rectangle windows on the outside to keep thieves out. I need to match the house this time with square windows. Also I didn’t make provision for bird boxes within the design !! So re submitted and eventually passed.

Plans.

If you can work it out. There are three open bays, a workshop and two smaller rooms. there is also attic space above.

I decided to re use the old garage bricks. This means pulling it down brick by brick and cleaning them, all 7000 ish.

So that’s the Planning done and the garge pulled down, with all the bricks re used.

The Council still want to keep an eye on things so bang goes another £552 to Building Control. Oh the joy

[Mazda_mender]

 I’ll be going through all this ,this year, i can not believe just how many copies of everything need to go to so many departments and just how many different departments are involved for the easy money you need to throw it it before anything is even done?

Good thread i’ll be watching this

Hope everything goes smooth

M-m

[Nedski]

 What bugged me was, planning and building control are in the same building. My plans had passed so i contacted building control who then demanded another set of plans and a block plan and ordinance survey maps. I stupidly said “you have them all there in the planning department on file” the reply was "They belong to the planning department you need to suply us with a full new set "  duh.

[Nedski]

Picking a builder…     Price or recomendation?  Quote for the job or daily rate ?

Well I had my builders before on recomendation and they were great so it’s a no brainer. As for price i’m going daily rate as I’ll try to work with them labouring as much possible. They also recomended a good guy for ground work so were all set to go.

FRIDAY  23rd Nov

Marking out the site ready for digging. We use something called “formers” set back and away from areas where they won’t be knocked and disturbed. They are like small goal post to look at and a single nail in each one measured perfectly is used to stretch out string across the area that is then used to line out the walls etc. These lines are the used a reference points as the build preogresses.

MONDAY 26th Nov

All hands on deck. The digger has arrived. We used aerosol to mark the ground following the string lines. The string can be removed temporarilly out the way. We also set a level for damp course (peg in the ground), this can be used to set vertical measurements anywhere on site with the laser level thingy(forgot its name) .We then measured the trench to 1 meter.

It’s wet very wet. Emergency run to hire shop for a water pump to keep the trench from flooding.

Twenty ton of soil at a time into the lorries. 5 lorries today that’s 100 ton and another 40 ton for tuesday.

Not bad for one day. Overnight we pray the sides don’t fall in with the rain.

Tuesday 27th nov

Things held up in the trenches. Concrete time. We had to order a special mixer with a 20 foot conveyer belt to reach the rear of the site. Made life so much easier, no wheelbarrows. 28 cubic meters of concrete thats 4 lorries and a part load.

Also more soil has gone today and some hard core has arrived this has been spread over the yard.

A busy two days. Digger has gone for now, he will be back to help with floor bases in a week or so. Just me and the two builders for a little while.

[Czinski]

Top work, that will be an awesome garage once it’s done. Glad you’re doing the decent thing with that old building, it really annoys me when I watch these property shows (yes I admit I’m slightly addicted to them) and they talk about converting outbuildings into living space when they would make perfect garages/workshops!

I’m with you on the joys of the planning system, I deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis with work. Just be glad they didn’t find any bats, we’ve had projects held up for years because of bats, badgers and even newts (great crested ones no less!)

[Nedski]

Well I ought to have been on tv with my house . 2 years in a caravan in the garden but we saved her from demolition. The house probably started as a one room millers cottage back around 1840 and has been extended many times over the years . It has no footings,just built on soil about a foot down. We had to gut it, tie walls together and well the list is endless.

Here are a few pics and to be honest we should have done the same as the garage and knocked it down. But it wouldn’t be the same. Oh it owes me less money than a 4 bed house in town!

[Neil_Stevenson]

 That must have been some project.

It looks very nice. Well done.

[Nedski]

Back to the garage

WED 28th Nov - MON 3rd Dec      After the mad first 2 days things slow down. Next its stacking out and laying high density blocks . On top of those are a high density breeze block on the inside and engineering blocks on the outside. This will bring us up to damp course level and this will also be the floor level inside eventually.

Blocks are laid onto the foundations. These are left overnight with planks and hessian ontop just to hold back the light frost. Note there is a drain pipe that will eventually connect to a front gutter.

Bricks are stacked out ready

This is a steel “former” . My old garage bricks are different sizes, 95% are 75 mm and 80mm deep and we use these, but some are 70mm and 82mm. The former means we can set a brick layer including mortar at 90mm high simply by measuring up the post and stringing across. We can then mix the two different depths of brick and still keep a level line.

The Damp course goes on and the first layers of old bricks. 

As we build up layers because the wall is over 11meters long we need an expansion gap. Across the gap are metal bridges or strips of metal with a plastic sleeve that can move in and out. This alows the two halves of the wall to be attched but they can move if needed and hopefully not crack.

 

This next pic is up to date today with the wall pointed up.

I like the look of the wall. Finally I think it was worth the 3 months chipping clean the old garage bricks all 7000.    I can post as we go along now.

[Nedski]

Sat 8th .

Bad weather has held things up a little this week. Monday and Tuesday were bitterly cold but we did get some walls built up. Wednesday and Thursday were just too cold, even the sand for the cement was frozen. Friday I was dressed up like a Polar Explorer but we did get on fairly well. Today Saturday One builder came in to bring up a back wall. We are up to window level now but can’t go higher until the inside is blocked up as well. If the weather was better we would have got the floor concreted last week, but as it was we carried on with the walls. This is a little bit backwards but hopefully early next week the floor can go down and a few days later we can start inside blockwork. 

I found an old piece of York Stone that was once a hearth in a bedroom, I originally found it burried in the front lawn as part of a path to the front door. Some other pieces are back in the house as hearth’s. Anyway I thought it would be good to have an engraved stone with the house name set in the garage wall. So we cut it to size ready to engrave and left it covered in lichen for the old effect. If i’m brave I may engrave it myself. 

[Nedski]

Sunday 9th Dec

I’m having a go at the house name in the stone. All the family think I should get a professional to do it. So all the more reason to have a go myself. 

Printed off the font and size i’m after for the letters. Just a matter of transfering them onto the stone.

Then it’s time to get the dremel out and follow the pencil lines.

Thats the outline done anyway. Probably carry on with that job next weekend as its to cold outside in the evening

Monday 10th

Levelled out the hard core that was dumped in the drive. This is where the concrete floor will be. Also had some breeze blocks arrive today along with some insulation. Took a trip to a reclamation yard as well today and bought a stone window ledge four feet long. This will go under the roadside window and cost £20 forgot pics though.

The area in foreground will be three open bays with only a gravel floor. Concrete is expensive so gravel will have to do. 

[joecottrell]

that look like a good project (or at least it would be with out the wonderful planners)

My pal who lives in Dordogneshire did a similar, knock down/rebuild garage last year. he went to see the Mayor showed a drawing & got the go ahead. The French, for all we say about them, are so uncomplicated in some matters.good luck

[peleton72]

Absolutely loving this!

Just about to move into our new gaff which is sans-garage so more than a little jealous!!!

[Nedski]

Thanks for the good luck. 

Monday 10th - Thurs 13th Dec

Some blocks arrived along with rolls of insulation. The weather is not good this week just a little cold again. Believe or not you can add special antifreeze to your cement as well as plasticizer to help you manipulate it. But even so after laying some blocks the weather beat us Wed and Thursday its just too cold.

 

As you can see its just too cold to carry on. You can see the frost on the brick.

This is the Stone window sill from the reclamation yard. There are quite a few flackey layers of 100 year old paint to remove. 

Stripping the paint off with a heavy duty wire wheel.

Finished stripping, back to stone. I don’t know wether to leave it as stone or repaint white like the house.

Its Still too frosty so for a couple of hours this morning we tamped down where we will lay the concrete. Reinforcement steel bar has also been delivered for the area where cars will drive into the workshop. This is just encase I’m flush enough to fit a two post ramp one day.

Just jumping back to the plans I posted earlier, this set are the ones that passed. The first ones i posted were turned down. See the difference… This set has all square windows…

Floor…

Were going to see what the weather forcast for the week is on Monday. If it carries on looking bad then we could decide to carry on building up and lay the floors last. The concrete floor needs a good three days nice weather with no frost or rain. Of course with the roof on its no problem but it does mean wheel barrowing quite a few ton of concrete to the back corners. If we could do it next week then it would be far easier to get the concrete in.     I’m not holding my breath though I’m thinking its going to be done last. 

[peleton72]

Lou and I move next week so will be without t’interweb for a few days, I’ll look forward to seeing a finished project when we’re back online…about 23rd Dec

[Nedski]

COUGH…

[peleton72]

[Nedski]

17th DEC

Oh the joys of our British weather, if it’s not raining it’s frosty. So only two and a half days work last week.  Today was better though and we got stuck in quite well.

More blockwork was layed.  The window openings were measured out.   A plastic layer fitted from under the floor up to the damp course.  Window sills… decided to cast our own!!  Made a mould for window sills.   Gave up thinking we could lay the floor in this weather, so that’s a decision made.   Finished my stone sign.  More blocks delivered and stacked. Contacted an oak beam supplier for the posts in the bays.  Contacted architect about calculations for size of oak beams. We basically know the beam sizes already but it needs to be put on paper and worked out properly. This keeps the people with pens in ivory towers happy. 

http://www.timberlincolnshire.co.uk

More internal blockwork going up.

Insulation going in.

Stone name finished and ready to go into the wall.  It’s not perfect, but its stone from the house and I can say “I did that”.

 I thought the builder was joking when he said to make my own sills. The laugh might still be on me but at around £50 for a cast sill and loads more for stone, it’s worth a go.   If  I could have got enough more reclaimed stone sills I would have, but there are none locally.

Wood for moulds.

Filling up the mould and putting in a reinforcement steel bar.

If they’re cr*p, nothing lost.  If they’re good enough thats £300 saved.  Crossing fingers. 

Another delivery.

Phew

 

[BenF]

Great stuff mate! It’s a long time since I did anything like that, I’m not sure i envy you!!

great job on the name plate too

[Nedski]

Thanks mate. Cars have been my living since school, day in, day out, over and over.   This is so diferent and challenging, I get a great buzz from doing it…

Ok I get a great buzz when things go well.  

When things go wrong