Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT Three Single Car Garages, Thatched Cottage: an inefficient use of space!

[BiTurbo228]

Hi folks!

I've been loitering around these parts on and off for quite a while now, and even had a thread on my old garage which I've thoroughly neglected to update (largely because I've outgrown it and it's a complete mess).

However, there's been a rather exciting development in my world in that I've finally bitten the bullet and become a home-owner!



It's a listed thatched cottage which is the appropriate combination of terrifying and unbelievably cool. The core of the cottage was built in the 1500s sometime, with extensions added on through the 1700s with a final extension added onto the back in 1997 when there's actually records existing. While it's in mostly good condition, there are some bits and pieces that need doing which I can detail if people are interested (new kitchen, gas tank underground so we don't spend £400pm on heating over winter, insulation so we don't spend £400pm on heating, get the AirBnB up and running so we can afford £400pm in heating until the other two get done etc. etc.).

However, the major draw for me is this:



Big ol' garden out the back with plenty of space for a generously-sized garage tucked in the corner. However, that's future plans after we've got all the necessary permissions. For now, there's a little L-shaped area in one of the outbuildings that I've claimed as an intermediate garage/workshop area, which is what this thread will be about

The little L-shaped area has one leg for a car parking space which is 9.8x19.3 and another one for a workshop at 6.6x10.6 (once I've removed the section claimed by the other half for washing machines and rabbit-food storage). The PO had been partway through converting it into a sort of rental flat type thing, so on moving in day it looked like this:


Stud wall partitioning the workshop area.


Through the door in the stud wall


Garage area

First order of business was gutting the timber partitioning wall in what will eventually be the workshop area, being careful to recover as much timber as possible as I'm skint!




Part of the reason for taking all of this down was that the stud wall on the left was inset a fair way and unnecessarily narrowed the workshop by about a foot!



I repurposed some of the plasterboard to line the breezeblock partitioning wall as sound transmission across it is a concern, and it saved a trip to the recycling centre.



For a similar reason I re-used some of the stud walling to sit in front of the breezeblocks. Partially to put a bit more distance between me working and the wall, and also because I much prefer timber as a building material (and loathe plasterboard/drywall). Much tougher, and the ability to screw stuff to it without having to align it with studs is worth its weight in gold.

Behind that went all of the rockwool I'd pulled out of the old walls, plus a couple of bags we've had lying around for yonks.



The top of the stud wall got nailed to one of the roof crossbeams, supporting that a little, and the bottom got bolted to the concrete floor using epoxy stud fixing goo.



Next up was to run the wiring. I'd actually forgotten about this step and jumped the gun on fitting the OSB to the face of it, and had to take all that off and go again!



There's a 2.5mm T&E cable going to an existing breaker for the higher level plugs which will sit above the workbench, and a 6mm T&E cable which will eventually get plumbed into another breaker for the under-bench plugs and the spur around the garage area. The idea is that the top ones will be used for movable stuff and pillar drills and the like, while the under-bench ones will be for compressors and the washing machine. I also get a little bugged by having angle grinder cables trailing over the workbench while I'm doing stuff, so they can stay plugged in underneath and just be brought up for use.

After that the boards could go back on and it was starting to come together!




That'll do for an initial update, but there's more to come if people are interested

 

[BiTurbo228]

Next up was making a start on the workbench



Can't remember the height exactly but it was sized to fit the washing machine under the open bit to the right, perhaps alongside a small compressor. The gap at the left is sized to fit the beefy old Oxford 170 MIG welder I've picked up.

The main frame is reclaimed 4x2 from the stud walling the PO had put up, but the shelf is 38x63 CLS studding from Wickes. Must say I'm not amazingly impressed as it's quite prone to splitting if there isn't a pilot hole drilled, and thanks to some mishmash of Brexit and Covid they charge you through the nose for the privilege! Lucky there was so much left here for me to repurpose!

I did have some short bits of 4x2 left over so I made an extra beefy vice post. Not that I've had any trouble with workbench strength before, but it's nice to have a really solid foundation.



One of the great things about this house is the amount of useful stuff the PO left behind, like this 18mm ply that was lying around the garden, which when dried out made for quite a nice worktop.




Needs sanding and varnishing to protect it a bit, but for now it's starting to look a little more like a workshop.

 

[sawduststeve]

Hi
Nice place you have there, gotta love a thatch
Good work.

steve

 

[BiTurbo228]

Thanks man! Yeah it's mildly terrifying, but dead cool luckily it's recently been redone so should last for a while too, although how long is variable depending on how well it dries out. Hopefully a while as it's in good sunshine and there's a strong prevailing wind across the fields in front.

Next job was to do something about the ceiling in the garage area. The headroom left something to be desired, being 1.78m (5ft 10") at the critical point where the ceiling would touch the roof of a jacked car (about a third of the way in from the outer wall).

I reckoned that at least some could be clawed back by removing the stacked layers of batten underneath the plasterboard. You can sort of see the construction here:



Some further poking about showed that the plasterboard was actually backed by 50mm celotex, and screwed onto yet another layer of batten before the roof rafters started.




Was left with a bit of a conundrum of how to take the battens down that were holding the insulation up inbetween the rafters. Solved with liberal application of duct tape!



Roped in some props and the other half to help stick some 9mm OSB up, re-routed the lighting so that it shouldn't be in the way of a jacked car, and that was another job jobbed




After all that I'd gained 19cm of headroom! Result. Still not exactly generous at 1.97m (6ft 5.5"), but starting to be just about workable.

Still got pretty close the first time I brought an engine over :S managed to get it clear of the pickup bed with a few strategically placed cement bags




Doing engine swaps is going to be interesting in this garage

 

[BiTurbo228]

Next job was to clear the floor in the actual garage bit to paint the floor. Used up some more reclaimed timber to make a shelf above the doorway, sized for oil bottles but will do for other stuff for now!




Lots of ferrying stuff aroudn and we went from this:



...to this:




First time testing out some concrete acid cleaner to get the years of oil and muck off the top of the concrete base (actually a patchwork of different concrete slabs).




Huh, there's actually some different colours under there! Even some bricks. Took forever to rinse/brush down and get all the remaining acid off, but man is it effective. I get the impression this used to be a little driveway/car port before it got walled in to make a garage.

I spent a while looking at different garage floor paints, but eventually I found a big 20l tub of Floormaster mid-grey for well under market price so that made the decision for me!




Coverage is great, and seems to have dried to a decent toughness. There's a few sections where the damproof has clearly broken and tracked up cracks or joins in the pad, and with it being flatland in East Kent the water table is quite high. It's threatened drying out enough a couple of times, but never fully, so I'll probably end up painting it in high summer sometime.

Amazing what a coat of paint does to make it look like a proper garage though!

 

[BiTurbo228]

After that was a bit of woodwork. Used up some more reclaimed timber to make a shelf above the doorway, sized for oil bottles but will do for other stuff for now.




I also found another piece of ply sequestered about the place and decided to build another workbench with it. The horizontals are more bits of leftover timber, and the legs were reclaimed from a trellis structure we've dismantled in the garden (hence the green).



As the layout of the workshop is still very fluid, and ultimately I'll be decamping to another as-yet-unbuilt garage on the site, I thought I'd leave it floating so it can move to wherever it's needed. For now I've made it the same height as the existing workbench in case I need to do anything that needs to span the two:



Next up was lighting. I'd cleared the storage area in the eaves and stuck a light up there.



I'm hoping to relocate a brace of compressors upstairs to save a bit of space in the actual workshop area.

I also popped two extra ones in the garage area. I've spaced them out at each side of the workshop rather than across the middle to try and eke out as much headroom as possible where cars are likely to be jacked.



Also, I bought the Sylvania LED lights from screwfix which I wouldn't particularly recommend. They're affordable, but not designed to be chained together (the bit where the wires clip in is only big enough for one set). To get them to work I had to half-inch a junction box from some of the 'legacy' wiring in the rest of the garage.

It was about now that I finally got around to wiring the under-bench plugs:





The idea with these (especially the one on the end of the workbench) is that I find it mildly annoying having angle grinder cabling draped over the workbench as I'm doing something, so figured I could plug it in under the workbench and keep it out of harms way. As the grinders will hang on the end of the bench, I could even leave them plugged in while they're stored which would be the height of decadence as far as I'm concerned

 

[pima67]

Find your new place via "Escape to the Country"? I've been watching old shows (2012-13 & 17) because it is like a travelog for the UK and it is interesting to see the various conversions of 300 year old plus farm cottages, barns, stables, mills, etc. to "modern" living spaces.

 

[captain14]

Duct tape is the 8th wonder of the world. See it held up the ceiling insulation just fine. I enjoy seeing what your “reclaimed” wood in your projects.

 

[BiTurbo228]

@pima67 Yeah it is a bit like that! I took a gander at the Kent episode but the couple's budget was £900k in 2012 which is way beyond our budget! I do love all of the old converted stuff though, has so much character. There's a house just down the road from us that's been converted form an old windmill, complete with sails!

This is the best shot in the house. Some of it's still around from the 1500s, although a fair chunk has been replaced over the years.



@captain14 It very much is! So far it's been used for this, and also some impromptu draft-proofing as all the windows along the side of the house where the prevailing wind blows are rotten and full of holes. Moving in November it was pretty chllly! We're on propane heating here, and the first week we tried it in early December we blew through a single £97 47kg cylinder in a week and only got the house to 16 deg C (61 F).

So started 'Operation Insulation' which is still very much ongoing

I started with an estimate of how much heat the house was losing if it was all sealed up, and figured out we could probably halve it without using methods that would be harmful to the building. You have to be careful with the breathability of insulation on older walls as a lot of modern stuff is designed to be watertight which can cause old walls to stay damp. Not great if they're timber!

First up was making a load of 'secondary glazing'. Although the leaded lights along the front of the house aren't actually original (apparently they'd have been flat float glass originally, but the Victorians had a fad of replacing them all with leaded ones), we rather like them. So rather than pull them out and replace them with double glazed units, we thought we'd make some temporary insulation to fit in over winter like so (apologies for the terrible photo):



They're a bit of a quick fix, but they do the job nicely. 10mm twin-wall polycarb sheet that's usually used for greenhouses, cut to shape and edged with pipe lagging. These fit snugly into the frames around the windows and dropped the U-value from ~5.8ish to ~1.4 while also plugging up any drafts. Oh, and also modelled are some curtains my other half's mum's very kindly been making for us!

Also sorted was an extra 150mm of insulation under the 90s tiled extension at the back of the house:



...and some thick underlay under the carpets which were just laid straight onto the concrete slab below!



After all of that we managed to get up to 18 degrees in the same conditions, although the gas usage was still pretty heavy. There's plenty more to do, but with the weather improving priorities shifted to other things...

 

[littlebean]

watching with interest!

 

[jonathco]

Subscribed! Very cool thread.

 

[BiTurbo228]

Thanks! Glad you folks are enjoying it

Once the rain had somewhat abated we got started on the first major job in the house. The old kitchen was very worse for wear, and a lot of the cupboards were odd sizes and shapes, so we bit the bullet and ordered a new one (normally I'm all for fixing up and using what you have, but my obstinance in that has to bend when there's two people making the decision!).

Another thing we'd noticed over winter is that the tiled kitchen floor feels like it's sucking your soul out through the soles of your feet! so we decided now was the opportunity to put in provisions for future underfloor heating. We took some advice from the local council about work within the house, and were told that as long as we're not touching the parts of historic significance we were fine to go ahead!

It's the first household floor I've laid do it was definitely a learning experience as you'll see!

Up came the tiles and screed...



...up came the concrete pad (mostly with the kango, but the last bit with the sledgehammer)



Under that was a layer of ******** which was removed and filled in with a layer of oversite concrete (yours truly in the action shot). We considered digging down further and re-laying the ********, but decided against it in the end. That might come back to bite us, but it's a little late now! Hopefully it'll have keyed into the exposed foundations enough to limit movement.



That gave a flat(ish) surface to lay damp proof and 150mm celotex over. You can get dedicated little mesh panels to space underfloor heating out, but we found that cable-tying the pipes to reinforcing mesh works just as well, and was useful as the oversite wasn't amazingly level.



My mum and sister helpfully supplied the work gang for the screed...



...my other half helped with her patented method for getting the most out of ton bags of sand



...and my dad helped me with laying and levelling:



Unfortunately, I clearly hadn't done a brilliant job of making sure the insulation was well supported underneath as the screed sank in a number of areas making for a very uneven final surface, so we tried some self-levelling compound. The only one that said it worked with underfloor heating was the deepest version, which was much more viscous than I was expecting. It levels fine where it's poured, but doesn't like to flow out past its boundaries. This would have been fine if my quantity surveying was up to scratch, but it wasn't so we had to do it in two pours.




That finally brought it level enough to lay some tiles down (again demonstrating one of my other half's patented techniques for cleaning excess grout of tiles)



That's where everything stands at the moment for the underfloor heating. Very much an amateur attempt, but hopefully will hold up fine and many lessons learnt!

Currently the pipes are poking out of the floor unconnected. Eventually they'll be connected up to a wood chip decomposter to heat the water as my other half's a tree surgeon and has a near endless supply of woodchip! I'll fabricate one of those before next winter (steel fabrication being much more my wheelhouse than interior flooring), but for now it's kitchen fitting and back to the garage

 

[littlebean]

progress is always good and it's great when family can help out

 

[BiTurbo228]

Yeah absolutely makes concrete mixing much easier! We've done a fair few garage bases in our time and have got it down to a fine art now. Will be useful for the big garage build!

 

[BiTurbo228]

Back to the workshop for a little bit after the tiling. Managed to pick up a secondhand vice:



I've got a Record 23 in the old garage which is what I was looking for in the new one, but this Record 25 popped up for a similar price to the other 23s in the area. I figured it might have something like an inch wider jaws on the same frame or something like that, but nope! It's an absolute monster!



Much bigger in every dimension. 1.5" wider jaws, 1.2" deeper throat, and 1.75" extra extension. Right beefy thing. So much so that I should probably have made my workbench an inch or two lower to get the working height at the vice right...

Next up was sorting the grinder storage. I've always been bugged slightly by having them all bundled up in a drawer, so I mounted some hooks on the side of the bench so they're easily stowed:



Haven't come up with a clever idea for the cables yet (possibly some sort of bin beneath the grinders to drape them into), but that's on the list to stop them trailing over the floor everywhere.

Tool wall's coming along as well, with a nifty little idea for using PVC pipe for cable tie storage I pinched from a Finnegan's Garage video.



Not a great deal of planning's gone into it, other than a vague idea of what I want close to the vice/garage area, and what I want closer to the house. Beyond that it's just been fitting stuff where it seems to fit neatly around other stuff. Once it settles a little and I've worked out a layout I like I'll go around the outline of each tool with a sharpie so I can tell at a glance where stuff lives.

Lastly, and speaking of spanners, I picked up a job lot from the ol' FB Marketplace. It's a bit light on 13mms, but there's a good variety otherwise and some nice quality spanners sprinkled in there (including some snap-on ones!). Not bad for £30



I've got a bit of a thing for trying to collect spanners made in as many different countries as I can. In this bunch I've ticked off Britain (Britool), France (FACOM), Canada (Snap-On), Germany (Gedore), and India (Draper). My favourite one in the old workshop is a Tang 13mm made in Yugoslavia. No more coming out with that cast into it!

Need to keep an eye out for some more!

 

[MisteR Tee]

Nice to see a "real world" garage in amongst the amazing ones, especially one from the UK where I am (not far from you either!). I was drawn into the GJ world by Jack Olsen's 12 Gauge Garage but have been absent from here for a few years now! I will post some updates on my garage again soon but not much has been happening, apart from filling it with more stuff I probably don't need!!!

 

[Augus7us]

I love this kind of stuff. Nothing like that over here in the states, our history just doesn't go back that far.

The non-garage room does take you back to a different time. Its fun to think of the number of interesting conversations that took place in that room over the years.

Garage part is looking great and it looks like you guys are really getting after it. When I see walls, electric, insulation, concrete work.. Its usually one of us crazy Yankee's.

Looking forward to more.

 

[tj675]

Love the thatch roof and the old house projects!

 

[Grizz1963]

Excellent

I do love a bit of a project, me.

 

[bmwrd0]

Excellent!

 

[82355]

So is there rain proofing under the thatch, or is it still the actual roof?

Martin

 

[jb3]

Any updates? Fascinating thread

 

[BiTurbo228]

(Very) Long time no post!

MisteR Tee Yeah it was Jack's garage that pulled me into this place as well. There's something inspiring about a really, really clever use of a relatively small space.

Augus7us We read up a bit about the place and it wouldn't even have had a second floor when it was built! Just open rafters up to the thatch. No chimney either. They just let smoke from the open fire percolate through the thatch, which would have helped preserve it for longer but would have done absolutely no good for their lungs (or eyes for that matter!).

82355 Nope! No rain proofing. Just thatch, rafters, some rather dodgy-looking fibreboard then room. It's been amazingly waterproof considering, and we've had some torrential downpours. As far as I can tell it works entirely through having it packed thick enough that the water just runs down onto the next stalk and so on and so forth until it runs out of roof!

Shall we start with house updates?

We finished the kitchen floor, and ended up buying pre-designed kitchen cabinets but fitting them ourselves to save a bit of cost (including the solid wood counter top, which is a gorgeous thing). Alas I've only got one picture of part of it:



Operation Insulation continued for a year or so. Got it so that we were still spending the same £400 a week in heating, but the interior would get to 10 degrees above ambient rather than 5. Not exactly workable. We ended up not heating the place and going on a weekend break to Seville instead (which worked out cheaper!). 18 degrees in November. We were in shorts and t-shirts and all the Spaniards were in fur coats!

City breaks aside, we needed a permanent solution. We dabbled around a bit with wood-chip decomposting heating for the underfloor lines, but without a great deal of success. I think there's some merit in it, but it needs redesigning.



Log burner seemed the best option, and there's no point in having such a massive fireplace without a fire in it!

First step was to extend the chimney. Regulations have changed recently and require 1.8m of chimney (or flue) from where it leaves the thatch. Ours was only 30cm! This is it partway through:




We were required by Listing regulations to use traditional materials, but these new(er) bricks were already in place. Means this bit of the chimney is at least post-1801

As the house butts directly onto the road we had to have a funky partially-cantilevered scaffolding arrangement. Worked fine but it did sway in the wind a bit!



With that sorted, and a full-length insulated flue fitted, we had a warm house in winter for the first time!



Wood itself isn't actually a cheaper way of heating than gas here, but the benefit of only heating the rooms you use pays dividends. Plus, the other half's brother is a tree surgeon which doesn't hurt! We made sure to buy a log burner with an extra-wide capacity so we can take all the gnarly odd-shaped logs he can't sell to the public.

Warm house! 21 degrees, and I can make bannocks on the top*.

That's pretty much it for the house work so far. Update on the garage next!

*all sorts of things really. Warm-water leeching acorns to make acorn flour, drying out all sorts of things (mushrooms, berries...even clothes is helpful!)

Edit: a pic of the kitchen would have been good!

 

[BiTurbo228]

Right! Onto garage updates.

So, I've done a few things I'm proud of in the existing garage. Overhead axle stand storage is one (don't forget to put the locking pin in!):



Beginnings of a tool wall is another:



As is sorting out some big tubes of citric acid, baking soda and water to chemically de-rust parts. I can nearly fit a whole Triumph subframe in there! Works well enough:




Oh, and some overhead long-stock storage (still need to come up with a good solution for sheet steel...):



However, I have committed the cardinal sin of garage use and absolutely rammed it full of more stuff than I have a hope of storing properly (in a surprise to no-one). Avert your eyes if you're weak of constitution...




This just will not do.

 

[BiTurbo228]

So, on with the broader garage plans.

I've got a couple of constraints that a lot of people won't have, namely that the house is listed and I'm unwilling to chop down the big ash as the end of the garden, nor the walnut and ashes at the front of the garden.

The house being 'listed' means it's on a government register of properties of historic interest. It's only Grade 2 which is the lowest possible listing, but it does give the local government more powers to dictate what you can and can't do with developments. They're mostly interested in the actual historic bit of the house (so the picture of the room with the beams above), but it does mean they require the use of 'traditional materials' in any outbuildings. They're not super-stringent, but it does mean no steel roof sheeting or PVC cladding. Fine by me (though steel roof sheets would have been nice).

The garage itself will go here:



The initial plan was to have one big 90m2 garage (~970sq ft). However, a garage that big requires building regs approval. Because I don't want to chop down the ash I'd need to account for the movement that causes in the ground, which required something like 1m of graded ******** underneath the slab. Even the cost of the ******** would blow the budget, but because the place is listed I'd also get archaeology involved (~£250 per day of observation, ~£400 for the initial report and then another ~£800 for the final report).

I baulked a little at paying someone £1800 to come watch me dig holes for a day, so no digging it is! If I keep the floor area to 30m2 I don't need building regs approval, which means I can plop it straight on the ground (with an appropriate strength of pad, as determined by yours truly).

However, before any of that starts I need to get a driveway from the road to the back of the garden. The planning folks wanted a clear 6m of hardstanding outside the garage doors for manoeuvring, which you can see the start of in the picture above. From there, a drive needs to hug the outside border of our garden out towards the road:



If you're not listed and are allowed to dig without having someone watch you, you could just hire a digger, dig down and fill it with ********. Because I want to pop mine straight on top, and we're on soft clay anyway, I needed some ground strengthening gear. 300m2 of ground reinforcing grid and heavy duty weed membrane later and we're off.

I tried to recoup some cost by getting all the ******** for free. There's loads of people about trying to get rid of rubble of some variety or other. I'd priced up getting a bulk delivery of ******** at £2700, so although it was a fair bit of effort it certainly paid for itself!

The ******** is lined with concrete blocks (again, collected for free) but supported with recycled plastic lawn edging stakes which cost a couple of hundred quid. I could have done it cheaper with some batten stakes soaked in creosote, but was concerned about chemical leeching and they'd still rot at some point anyway as I live on the island of perpetual damp.

That leads onto the entrance, which snakes around the aforementioned walnut and another mature, surprisingly healthy ash:



To avoid compacting the roots I've thrown some more money at people who know what they're doing for some tree root protection mesh. This stuff gets filled with graded MoT type 3 (******** with reduced fines so water can permeate it) and stops the ground compacting over the roots. That was £500 I'm not paying for MoT Type 3 at even more cost than regular ********, so I've made some myself by sorting the ******** I've collected and mashing up the rest with a sledgehammer. The sledgehammering is a real slog so I'm considering hiring a mini concrete crusher for the remainder, but we'll see how bruised the wallet feels.

All told I was £1670 into something I'd budgeted precisely zilch for, mainly because I didn't appreciate the implications of listed buildings, but I think I've minimised cost as much as I could while still getting something that should last.

 

[sawduststeve]

So, on with the broader garage plans.

I've got a couple of constraints that a lot of people won't have, namely that the house is listed and I'm unwilling to chop down the big ash as the end of the garden, nor the walnut and ashes at the front of the garden.

The house being 'listed' means it's on a government register of properties of historic interest. It's only Grade 2 which is the lowest possible listing, but it does give the local government more powers to dictate what you can and can't do with developments. They're mostly interested in the actual historic bit of the house (so the picture of the room with the beams above), but it does mean they require the use of 'traditional materials' in any outbuildings. They're not super-stringent, but it does mean no steel roof sheeting or PVC cladding. Fine by me (though steel roof sheets would have been nice).

The garage itself will go here:



The initial plan was to have one big 90m2 garage (~970sq ft). However, a garage that big requires building regs approval. Because I don't want to chop down the ash I'd need to account for the movement that causes in the ground, which required something like 1m of graded ******** underneath the slab. Even the cost of the ******** would blow the budget, but because the place is listed I'd also get archaeology involved (~£250 per day of observation, ~£400 for the initial report and then another ~£800 for the final report).

I baulked a little at paying someone £1800 to come watch me dig holes for a day, so no digging it is! If I keep the floor area to 30m2 I don't need building regs approval, which means I can plop it straight on the ground (with an appropriate strength of pad, as determined by yours truly).

However, before any of that starts I need to get a driveway from the road to the back of the garden. The planning folks wanted a clear 6m of hardstanding outside the garage doors for manoeuvring, which you can see the start of in the picture above. From there, a drive needs to hug the outside border of our garden out towards the road:



If you're not listed and are allowed to dig without having someone watch you, you could just hire a digger, dig down and fill it with ********. Because I want to pop mine straight on top, and we're on soft clay anyway, I needed some ground strengthening gear. 300m2 of ground reinforcing grid and heavy duty weed membrane later and we're off.

I tried to recoup some cost by getting all the ******** for free. There's loads of people about trying to get rid of rubble of some variety or other. I'd priced up getting a bulk delivery of ******** at £2700, so although it was a fair bit of effort it certainly paid for itself!

The ******** is lined with concrete blocks (again, collected for free) but supported with recycled plastic lawn edging stakes which cost a couple of hundred quid. I could have done it cheaper with some batten stakes soaked in creosote, but was concerned about chemical leeching and they'd still rot at some point anyway as I live on the island of perpetual damp.

That leads onto the entrance, which snakes around the aforementioned walnut and another mature, surprisingly healthy ash:



To avoid compacting the roots I've thrown some more money at people who know what they're doing for some tree root protection mesh. This stuff gets filled with graded MoT type 3 (******** with reduced fines so water can permeate it) and stops the ground compacting over the roots. That was £500 I'm not paying for MoT Type 3 at even more cost than regular ********, so I've made some myself by sorting the ******** I've collected and mashing up the rest with a sledgehammer. The sledgehammering is a real slog so I'm considering hiring a mini concrete crusher for the remainder, but we'll see how bruised the wallet feels.

All told I was £1670 into something I'd budgeted precisely zilch for, mainly because I didn't appreciate the implications of listed buildings, but I think I've minimised cost as much as I could while still getting something that should last.

Holy cow , what a load of ****, have you never seen Grand Designs, it all seems par for the course sadly. Well done for keeping at it, and it seems quite a drop in size of garage, finish one and stick up two more.
The thatch looks lovely.
Keep it up , I’ll be following along.

Steve

 

[BiTurbo228]

Couldn't agree more! Royal pain in the backside. I expect this is the point where the Grand Designs chappy would be tutting and casting judgemental aspersions (before saying that he believed they'd do it all along when they get to the end).

Ah, I missed that there would be two 30m2 garages (so 60m2 total). Still a fair drop in size from 90m2, and less able to make efficient use of the space as each will only really house one car, but I've got some idea of how to make the best of that situation. I'm just a smidgeon short of wedging in 3 garages

 

[BiTurbo228]

In a stroke of luck, my other half's brother had recently bought a plot of land just down the road from us, and part of that had been used as a dumping site for small-scale demolition. He's one of those excellent people, both generally and in being well connected to a lot of people with all sorts of exciting machinery (runs a tree surgery company). As a fantastic christmas present he offered me a day's worth of labour and access to a borrowed concrete crusher to clear as much rubble from his land as we could. It was a pretty full-on day so I didn't get any photos, but here was the aftermath:



About 12 tons of crushed ********. Ideal for filling in the tree root protection mesh. We thought we were clever tipping it directly into the mesh, but thoroughly underestimated the amount of fines that were still clinging to it and would compact down to be watertight and starve the roots. Took a solid month of fishing it back out again and re-packing it with cleaned stuff. You can see the difference here:



Following on with the affordability drive the neighbours had a batch of miscast bird baths (they run a bird supplies company). Now I know ceramic doesn't the best ******** make, but smash it up with a hammer enough and it packs into the spaces between the bigger ******** well enough. I'll never end up with 10t trucks on it due to the trees at the front anyway.




After we'd cleared the big pile of ******** my dad and my other half's dad came round and helped me scoop out all of the twigs and wood chip I'd used to fill in the big rut between the road surface and the old parking space.



Bit of concrete mixing later and we had a good solid apron out the front:



The job for a long time since then was shuttling around sharp sand and washing it down between the gaps of the bigger bits of rubble to make a robust surface that still drains:



Another learning point is that sharp sand really doesn't wash down as easily as I was expecting. Anything over an inch or two thick of a layer is too tough for the water to pick up and it just percolates through it instead, leaving voids beneath. If there was an easy way to uniformly mix the sand into the rubble before infilling then I'd do that (a cement mixer would do, but would be slow work). The solution I've come up with for the rest of the driveway, considering I do a fair amount of work at night after the kiddo has gone to sleep and a cement mixer would be rather antisocial, is lay down the ******** in 1/3rd thicknesses, wash the sand down that, then layer it up as I go along.

 

[BiTurbo228]

After this I started with hand compacting the sand (for fear of a machine compressing the roots of the tree, probably unfounded) and laying blocks. My planning authority wanted 5m of 'bound surface' from the entrance to the road to avoid stuff like gravel getting kicked out. As someone with a motorbike I think this is eminently sensible as gravel off people's driveways is lethal. Slow progress to begin with as the hand compacting was pretty time consuming (and probably unnecessary in hindsight).



Normally these pavers don't drain very well at all. They say they will through little knobbles on the sides that space each paver out by 2mm or so, but a combination of filling that with fine sand and the gap being too narrow means it just silts up way too quickly to be useful.

So, to combat this I've spaced mine ~12mm apart and filled the gap with 10mm gravel. Once I'm confident it all fits properly I'll wash some more sharp sand down it to help solidify it a little more, but maintain drainage.



Oh, and the pavers are another lucky free situation. We noticed when excavating the ******** on my other half's brother's land that there were a boatload of pavers there. At the time we were thinking of doing the first 5m in solid pavers, then switching to two trackways of pavers with a gravel strip down the middle for the rest of the driveway.

Work progressed at a bit of a slower pace than I'd hoped, but eventually we got to a point where I could test the structural integrity of all the odd decisions I'd made




Nothing seemed to move or crack immediately at least, which is reassuring. Should be a reasonably good test as the pickup's about 1800kg (4000lbs) and we estimate it had about 900kg (2000lbs) of pavers in the back of it...

Once we got out from under the trees things sped up immeasurably. Hired a compactor to level the whole rest of the driveway portion with...



...which made block laying much quicker.



You may notice that we'd decided to do the whole length in solid pavers. That changed when they started a load of building work opposite where I work. They'd pulled up a whole section of block paving, and rather than re-using the blocks were going to skip them and buy new ones. Asked if I could have them and they said 'go ahead, knock yourself out mate' so I've pulled 1800 out of the spoil pile.

That put the idea of paving the whole thing into contention, just need to find 3200 more blocks from somewhere affordably (preferably free). I reckon there's about 1000 still in the ground down at the land. They're about 50p (64c) a block currently and we've got 3500 so far from various sources for nothing at all.

Man this would be expensive in new materials!

 

[BiTurbo228]

The next step, which pretty much brings us up to date, is work on the hardstanding. The planning permission bods wanted 6m (~20ft) of hardstanding in front of the doors, which was looking a little tight with the apple tree until I thought of spacing the two 30m2 garages apart a little further to make a parking space between them. That put the second door clear of the tree, and produced a nice little swoopy border to it all.

Similar order of business here, with weed proof membrane then reinforcement grids, followed by ******** with sharp sand washed down the cracks.




This was sped up slightly by using a ton of crushed gravel one of my mate's dads had superfluous to requirements to fill in the gaps between the big blocks of ********. Much quicker than what I was doing before, which was (and now is again), smashing up tiles from my aunt-in-law's bathroom redesign



Only other development is I've marked out where the garage bases are going to go. Very nice to see that I'm only a metre or so from where the main portion of hardstanding ends.



Running total is now up to £3300, mainly on ground reinforcement, sharp sand, and sacks of 10mm gravel for between the blocks. Oh, and a couple of ton-bags of limestone chippings as I've run out of the clean ******** I had. All things that would be unnecessary if I didn't mind about drainage.

 

[BiTurbo228]

Well, I've worked out that I've moved 31 tons of material (including the driveway) to get to this point, which is where it's at as of this evening. All by hand. Don't feel so bad it's taken so long now that I've worked that out




75% of the hardstanding area filled in. Just a smidge more sand to wash into the newly laid limestone chippings. Then it'll be onto levelling sand and pavers. I'll be at 40 tons of material moved by the end of that! Not counting where I've had to move things more than once (i.e. depressingly often!).

To give myself a bit of a break from endless barrowing I've plotted out some of the proposed garage design. As I can't have one big one I've put a fair bit of thought into how to maximise use of two smaller ones. I'm sure folks here would have some clever ideas too.

This is what I've come up with so far:




So, two 4x8m (13x26ft) 'big single' garages. These just about sneak under the 30m2 (323sqft) internal floor area threshold for building regulations to apply. Between those will be a 2.8m (9.2ft) gap, with a 3m (10ft) 'corridor' between the two, and a flat roof sheltering a 5m (16ft) long open ended parking bay. On the other side is another 2.8m gap to another outbuilding we have which will get roofed and be another drive-in car parking space. If I have big 1m (3ft) eaves that can be 9m (29.5ft) long, so I might be able to wedge two of my smaller cars into that (or one bigger car and the motorbike). There's also the option of making another enclosed storage area at the back of that if internal space is at a premium. Then there's a 40cm (1.3ft) gap to the existing outbuilding.

This uses pretty much every inch of available space, and lets me wedge in 4 cars with a 3x4m (10x13) workshop area at the end of each garage, plus the 2.8x3 (9.2x10) central area.

Having what are in effect two different garages connected together gave me the idea of having one 'clean' garage for things like painting and engine work, and one 'messy garage' for things like grinding and fabrication. I had real trouble doing jobs that needed a clean environment at my old place as grinder grit got everywhere and it was way too jam-packed with stuff to keep clean easily, so this would be a real luxury.

I also had some ideas for rafter designs and loft storage.



With 38 degrees of roof pitch I can have 1.5m (5ft) of internal headroom above the ceiling joists (if I inset them into the walls rather than plonk them on top). For the whole of one of the garages, and in the workshop area of the second garage, I'll use that as loft storage.

With 3m joists in the walls and raised ties I can sneak 3.75m (12.3ft) of internal headroom, which would future-proof a lift of some variety.

The question at the moment is whether to put the lift in the clean or dirty garage. I'm thinking clean as the dirty garage will probably have an immobile hulk in it for quite a proportion of its time, and a lift would be really handy for general maintenance.

Anyone have any other ideas of things I can bake into the design now?

 

[jb3]

Awesome progress! Will you have any pushback on the center carport part of it? I could see that continuous roof between them being considered "one" building depending on level of unreasonable for local authorities

 

[BiTurbo228]

Thanks!

The short answer is yes, but easier to ask forgiveness than permission. If there is significant pushback it's easier to detach the rafters by sawing them off and putting some posts in than it is retrospectively letting beams into existing garages.

At least, that's my thought process so far!

 

[LWB]

The only thing I would be concerned about is shedding water off of the gable roofs going towards you flat roof.

I would assume you'd have oversize eavestrough but would you slope the flat roof as well?

I like the design and it's given me some ideas for my place.

 

[jb3]

The only thing I would be concerned about is shedding water off of the gable roofs going towards you flat roof.

I would assume you'd have oversize eavestrough but would you slope the flat roof as well?

I like the design and it's given me some ideas for my place.

He could pitch the flat roof at a slope towards the rear maybe. I agree I'd hate to have some built in flat roof problems if I didn't need to

 

[BiTurbo228]

The only thing I would be concerned about is shedding water off of the gable roofs going towards you flat roof.

I would assume you'd have oversize eavestrough but would you slope the flat roof as well?

I like the design and it's given me some ideas for my place.

You and me both on the flat roof front!

Glad you like it. It's turned out a bit prettier than I was expecting (or at least, less of a frankenstein-looking thing). I've had some further thoughts on the ceiling joists which I'll witter on about in a bit.

He could pitch the flat roof at a slope towards the rear maybe. I agree I'd hate to have some built in flat roof problems if I didn't need to

Great minds think alike! It's got nearly a 2.5 degree slope towards the rear, which leaves me with 2.25m (7.4ft) of internal headroom at the back. I could get a bit more slope on there, but the headroom starts getting a bit marginal. That might not be the end of the world as I'm not headbangingly tall myself, but

It is a concern though as I've made at least one outbuilding before with too shallow of a pitch and had to fight damp issues for a long time. I'd rather not have that! I'm thinking I might be able to get away with a single unbroken EPDM roof surface as it won't be visible from the street, but if not it'll probably have to be felt.

It's definitely a concern, and I've not got the most amount of experience with flat rooves to be able to tell if 2.5 degrees is sufficient.

 

[y'sguy]

Very Nice work. I am along for the ride.

 

[82355]

Glad to see this revived!

Martin

 

[captain14]

Here’s a couple of pictures of buildings with your design.

I have seen an early picture of the right side firehouse with carriage doors in the center bay. I’m sure each of the center bays have a slight pitch to the rear for rain water runoff.

 

[BiTurbo228]

Thanks folks!

Interesting to see a couple of examples of the design. Looks alright to me! I was wondering about having a forward-section of sloped roof on the flat roof to engineer in a bit more of a slope, but didn't fancy having to sort out the guttering as it would just be that one roof that exits forwards.

A little more fiddling about with CAD on the ceiling joist design has produced this:



On the right we have the raised tie lift area. I learnt this was acceptable practice in an excellent rafter design book I've forgotten the title of (but will dig out later!). Loads of interesting things you can do that I had no idea of, though I now spend a fair amount of time looking at the rafter designs of things like old church ceilings and wood-framed warehouses. Fascinating stuff.

On the left I've had a play around with maximising the amount of upstairs headroom by sinking the rafter into the stud wall a little. This keeps the roof pitch the same, but adjusts the floor height upstairs. I expect there's a term for it, but I haven't come across it before. I can still tie the rafters in to prevent them splaying by extending the eaves up to a metre long and tying the joist into the end of the eaves. That gives me 1.8m (nearly 6ft) of headroom upstairs at the centre of the pitch, and 2.7m (nearly 9ft) of headroom downstairs. I can't quite remember how much height I needed for my engine crane, but hopefully it's enough if I need to whip an engine in and out of something in the low garage.

Oh, I'm not sure if folks have come across it before, but there's a great resource here in the UK for sizing of timbers for spanning gaps. I've got a paper version of it, but there's a free online resource here. They're a set of tables that give you the maximum span length of a given depth of commonly available timber, arranged by Canadian Lumber Standard C16 and C24 (though I gather you folks in the US have far more choice of softwood grades), and expected dead and live loads. The book does oak beams too, but the online tool doesn't. I expect you might have something similar in the US, but if not (and if your building codes don't specify for the building you're constructing), it's a good resource to size beams properly.

The history of these is pretty neat too. They were developed in WW1 when we suddenly had a pressing need to throw up thousands of timber buildings very rapidly. Things like early aircraft hangars, warehouses etc. Rather than having to engineer each and every roof, leave it to the chance of having someone experienced on site, or risk wasting resources on oversized lumber, they conducted a load of experiments to see what spans each common size of beam could take. This has been a publicly available resource since, which is fantastic really.

This was also a precursor to roof truss and early engineered beam design in the UK, which was really shot forwards by the need for aircraft hangars to have enormous clear spans not normally required for other big buildings like warehouses where the odd pillar inside doesn't make much of a difference.



Before that, massive spans like railway terminals were done in cast-iron (many of which are still standing today!).